Lifestyle Archives

A Surprise Seafood Delight with Wine

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We drove out to Living Roots for a wine lunch with exactly one goal: finally sign up for the wine club. That’s it. We’d been meaning to do it for a while and kept not doing it.

What we didn’t know is that @lido_fingerlakes has taken over the kitchen for a summer popup. Chef Chris Cullen is running a seafood pop-up Thursday through Sunday, and it caught us completely off guard.

The plating looks like French Laundry, but it’s local ingredients. The florals and seasonal picks feel like a New York City restaurant. And the flavor profiles land right on top of our favorite Japanese meals. That’s a strange combination to describe, and it’s still the most accurate one we’ve got.

We started with a couple of dishes. Then we ordered a couple more. By the end we’d worked through most of the menu and not one plate let us down.

Wine in hand, Keuka Lake out the window, food coming out one course at a time. We came for the wine club and left with a new favorite meal.

If you’re near Keuka this summer, go before the pop-up ends.

Fresh Oysters & Rosé Wine with Vineyard Views

Lido Restaurant Menu Board 8/1 - Fresh Seafood Dishes & Prices

@livingrootswine

A French Date Night at Café Cent Dix

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There’s a certain magic to slowing down over a meal someone else is cooking.

This particular evening called for something a little more indulgent, a little more romantic, so we walked over to Le Café Cent-Dix on Aurora Street, just off the Commons. No reservations there, which means you show up early and wait with everyone else who had the same idea. Worth it.

The plates came out the way the best evenings do: unhurried, generous, one thing after another. Duck took center stage, its skin crisped to a deep golden brown, rich and tender beneath. Alongside it, a well-seared steak, charred at the edges and pink in the middle, the kind of thing that makes you slow down and pay attention. A handful of greens rounded everything out, a fresh counterpoint to all that richness.

A night like this isn’t really about the menu. It’s about the ritual. The way a small room fills with warmth and noise, the way conversation drifts easily between courses, the way an ordinary Tuesday quietly turns into something worth remembering.

You don’t need a special occasion to eat well. Sometimes the finest table is the one a few blocks away, and all it takes is showing up hungry with someone you love. Good ingredients, treated simply and honestly, letting the flavors speak for themselves.

By the time the last plate was cleared, the evening had already earned its keep. A French date night, no passport required. Just a good table, a bit of patience in line, and the good sense to savor it.

Elegant Merinated Cucumber & Celtuce on Vintage Floral Plate

Grilled Little Gem Wedge Salad with Crispy Shallots

Handpicked Summer Blueberries with Joe and Angel

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We picked blueberries at Joe’s parents’ place today. Me, my husband Angel, and Joe, a couple of buckets, most of the afternoon.

It’s easy work and it’s slow, which is the appeal. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. The ripe ones come off easy, and the ones that fight you aren’t ready yet. Joe kept finding the fullest branches and pointing them out. Angel worked the low bushes, the ones you have to crouch for, where the fruit sits in the shade and stays sweeter. Between the three of us the buckets filled faster than the conversation ever slowed.

Joe’s mom was out there too with the dogs, who had a system. Anything that hit the dirt was theirs. They ran the rows like a cleanup crew and I don’t think one dropped berry made it out of that patch.

Joe’s usually the one taking care of us, so it was good to spend an afternoon on his family’s land, picking from bushes his parents have been tending for years.

We came home with way more blueberries than three people should reasonably eat. Scones first, then muffins, then syrup with whatever’s left. Purple fingers for a day or two.

Summer Garden update end of June

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End of June, when the heat loosens its grip and the yard goes quiet. The raised beds hold their shape against the day’s sprawl, cedar edges warm to the touch, soil still breathing from the sun. Vines find what they’re looking for, small tendrils hooking into the trellis like a steady handshake. Carrot tops feather the paths; the salad patch keeps its cool, a low green tide.

I water slow and let the light do its last work. Beads gather on leaves, then vanish. A bee drifts past my shoulder, unbothered. Somewhere a neighbor closes a door. Here, it’s only the soft scrape of a trowel, the faint sweetness of tomato stems on my hands, the small proof of planning made real: a cucumber with a pale bloom, the hint of orange shouldering up through soil, a bowl’s worth of crisp leaves.

These beds aren’t grand, just honest. A rhythm you can feel under your ribs—seed, care, wait, return. At the end of June, the garden answers in its careful language: not yet everything, but enough tonight. I set the hose down, look once more, and let the day close around it.

Wine day with bae

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“Wine day with bae” felt like permission to slow down. Late June light, the kind that softens edges, found its way through the glass and warmed our hands. We didn’t plan much beyond getting here. That was the plan—let the Finger Lakes decide the rest.

The first pour was bright and easy, like a door opening. We took our time, letting the berry and stone settle on the tongue, listening for the quiet notes a busy week drowns out. Clink. Smile. A small joke that landed just right. The kind of conversation that doesn’t need to prove anything, just breathe alongside us.

Out beyond the patio, rows of vines kept their own careful rhythm, green upon green, patient and sure. A breeze lifted the edge of the afternoon, and with it, the sense that we were exactly where we were meant to be—two chairs, one table, the lake not far, the world briefly uncomplicated.

June carries its flags and its histories. We carried ours in the open, in the easy way our shoulders touched, in the quiet pride of being ordinary together. There was no grand lesson, only the soft relief of time well-spent.

We left a little lighter, lips stained, palms warm, promising to come back before the summer tilts away.

You should visit Lamoreaux Landing

Given THE Best On vinyl

I’ve been waiting for this one. Given THE Best finally landed on my doorstep, and the box is heavier than I expected. Four LPs, the muffler towel folded crisp, the shirt soft and a little oversized (it’s an L). And the cover. Kizu Natsuki drew something new for this, and in person it almost glows.

This is the analog version of the best album that dropped back in October 2024, every theme and insert song from the anime pulled onto vinyl. Limited box, ESJL-3170. The kind of thing you don’t expect to actually get your hands on.

I put on KIZUATO, lower the needle, and wait through that first crackle. It’s the same song I’ve carried around in earbuds and late-night tabs for years. But on vinyl the air gets involved. The quiet between notes sits heavier. I feel it in my chest, the old ache that taught me how music can hold a hand you can’t reach.

Four discs is a long conversation, so I’m in no hurry. I flip through the sleeves and let the art lean against the turntable. The shirt catches the afternoon light. All of it says the same thing: you were here for this once, and you still are.

There’s a quiet joy in making room for something you love, in letting it take up space without apology. 🏳️‍🌈👨🏻‍❤️‍👨🏽 And when Side A ends, I’m already reaching for the next one, grateful for the memories, the room fills back into sound and asks me to stay longer.

Given THE Best (ギヴン THE BEST), catalog ESJL-3170 is the vinyl box set version of the best album collecting the theme songs and insert songs from the anime series Given. The original best album came out October 2024, and this analog edition released May 14, 2025. It’s a fully production-limited release, and it’s already sold out at CDJapan.

The details:

4 LPs (12 inch) in a box set
Newly drawn cover illustration by the original manga creator, Kizu Natsuki
Bundled merch: an album-exclusive T-shirt (size L), a muffler towel, and a rubber band
Artists: given / syh and CENTIMILLIMENTAL (V.A. compilation)
Price was 20,000 yen (22,000 yen tax incl. in Japan), roughly US$125
JAN/barcode: 4547366723212

The first song, opening LP1 Side A, is “KIZUATO” (キヅアト).

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Happy PRIDE everyone

Happy Pride. 🏳️‍🌈

This year we got to celebrate it twice over, as husbands and as a team. On Thursday we were at Schuyler Pride, and on Saturday Angel and I had lunch at the Corning Museum of Glass and then walked over to the SoFLX Pride Street Festival. Flags moving in the wind, music threading through a street full of people who felt, for an afternoon, like neighbors.

We’ve been husbands in a thousand quiet ways (coffee, errands, brushing shoulders in the kitchen). Pride is when we get to bring that out into the sunlight and let it glow. Hand in hand, heart to heart. #husbandswhopride

To the ones who paved this road, the ones dancing on it now, and the ones still finding their way: we’re here, we’re us, and we’re not going anywhere. Happy #PrideMonth. 🌈

Zamartz is Proud to have sponsored Southern Finger Lakes Pride 2026, handing out 50 free flags at Schuyler Pride alongside Goldenrod Preserve and Flags for Good. 🏳️‍🌈

Finally posting our first illustrated family portrait

We’ve been sitting on this longer than we meant to. Today, in the quiet just after lunch, we finally pressed publish. Our first illustrated family portrait.

It’s tender in a way photographs sometimes miss—lines that feel like a steady hand, colors that hold warmth without shouting. Two of us, close the way we are in real life, and a certain dog who insists on being part of every frame. There’s a playful wink tucked inside, a nod to the worlds we grew up loving, the kind that still make us light up.

Our favorite Pokémon of Glaceon, Snorlax, Mewtwo, Chandelure, Galarian Articuno and of course Bulbasaur. We always thought Dyson had the energy of a Bulbasaur so he looks right at home.

Finally posting our first illustrated family portrait: all the best Zach & Angel

— #pokemon #gayswhogallery #loveislove — ‍❤️‍ ️‍A to Z illustrations

Illustration by RICARDO LIRA

Just checking in and saying hello

Just checking in to say hello.

A quiet frame in black and white, the world simplified to light and shade. I hold the day at arm’s length and let it answer back with a face, a breath, proof that I was here. No big story—just the ordinary, shown as it is.

It’s just on an October afternoon. The air has that early-fall hush; even the pixels seem to exhale. When color steps aside, lines get honest. Grain gathers where chatter would be, and the small things have room to speak.

I think about how often we wait for the right moment and miss the real one. Today I take the real one. A small wave from the edge of a week, a pause long enough to listen, a reminder that presence can be enough.

Hello, from me to you. Be well. Be kind. Stand as you are. ️‍ ✌️

Spooky season is here with 3 new ghostly additions to the property

Spooky season tiptoed in today, quiet as a breeze, and suddenly there are three new faces on the lawn—white and weightless, caught between play and hush. My dad made each ghost standee by hand and I helped finish them off with a coat of paint and my sketched. This is a good way to use some leftover wood from projects that would be discarded or turned into firewood. We may add more thought out the year to have more seasonal touches.

There’s a kind of homemade magic in a simple decoration, the way it turns a familiar corner into a tiny stage. By dusk they will glow a little brighter with the help of a solar spot light.

Here are the sketches we made before we stated building the standees.

Happy 6th Wedding Anniversary

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Happy 6th wedding anniversary.

Six years is a long walk that somehow still feels like the first turn out of the door. Thought we have moved as many years as we’ve been married, the one thing that hasn’t changed is waking up to my best friend every day. My adventures keep becoming more exciting, detailed and creative and sharing them with Angel and our fur-babies is a blast! Here’s to another adventure right around the corner!

From A to Z, it’s the whole alphabet of a life: arrivals, allergies, afternoons; zeal, zero days, and the zinnias planted this spring! A to Z illustrations

Illustration from Prince & Ben

Side quest to a neighboring lake winery – Keuka

A side quest became the day.

We drove through the rolling hills to a neighboring latke. Keuka’s elbows of shoreline bent around us, green rising into tidy rows, sky rinsed clean after a week of heat.

At the tasting bar, glass met glass, a quiet bell. The clean design and attention to detail caused us look deeply at the room and again the wine.

On the ride back, the sun laid itself flat across the water, gold finding every ripple. As we drove back thought the hills the water faded and the fields reached out towards home.

Side quests like this are why maps never feel finished.

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