For those who have been very, very good this year, a new creation from Van Cleef & Arpels beckons. The diamond-encrusted Between the Finger ring has just arrived in boutiques. Part of the house’s Lotus collection, it was inspired by the floral-themed baubles that were originally designed in the late 1920s. This ring features a quartet of blooms, and the upward-turning petals, which all achieve slightly different heights, capture the feeling of a flower rustling in the breeze. It was made with collectors—both entry-level and established—in mind, and its multi-generational appeal is only one of its virtues. (Price upon request, vancleefarpels.com) —Ashley Baker

Season One of Love Life—HBO Max’s first original scripted show, which debuted with the streaming service in May 2020—was a multi-year look at the career and love life of Darby, a twentysomething breaking into the New York City art world. Starring Anna Kendrick, each of the 10 episodes saw Darby weather the ups and downs of her career and love life. Season Two has a similar structure—it follows a few people over several years—but a new set of characters. The story of Marcus (William Jackson Harper) and Mia (Jessica Williams) cleverly starts at Darby’s wedding. In Season Two, creator and show-runner Sam Boyd hones his powers of observation, and the resulting story line is clever, awkward, provocative, and unexpected—all at once. (hbomax.com) —Bridget Arsenault

Calling all real New Yorkers (residents or those who occupy the city in spirit): this holiday season, Michael Kors is here for you. The Broadway-loving designer has debuted a stellar sweater that pays homage to Sardi’s, the Times Square actors’ haunt. It’s part of a capsule collection for Bergdorf Goods, a pop-up shop at Bergdorf Goodman that specializes in custom, New York–themed clothing from designers such as Kors, Ralph Lauren, and Altuzarra. Sardi’s is familiar territory for Kors; back in April, he brought the restaurant’s well-known portrait wall to the runway for his brand’s 40th-anniversary show. ($990, bergdorfgoodman.com) —Ashley Baker

Eleven Madison Park is offering a $375 take-home Thanksgiving meal with a whole, roasted kabocha squash in lieu of a turkey. (They recently went vegan.) Curiously, the dessert they send—pumpkin, maple-pecan, or apple pie—does not actually come from the Eleven Madison Park kitchen. It comes from Petee’s Pie Company, a bakery with outposts on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn. If you want to win over friends with a pie that you can say—without technically lying—is from the Eleven Madison Park holiday menu but that won’t include the price of the most expensive gourd in New York City, go straight to Petee’s. They offer nationwide shipping and flavors ranging from sour cherry to sweet potato to banana cream. (Starting at $35 per pie, peteespie.com) —Jensen Davis

American TelNet, the most popular phone-sex line of the early 1990s, started as a therapy line. Men took the newspaper ads for “phone therapy” as euphemistic and kept asking operators to connect them with the bustiest “therapist” around. Cutting his losses, Richard (the pseudonym for the man who started the line) teamed up with a guy named Mike Pardes to turn the 900 number into an actual phone-sex line. Hosted by Tina Horn, Operator, a podcast from Wondery, looks at the rise of the pay-per-call sex line and the cultural, later legislative, backlash that killed it. Horn goes deep into the company, interviewing the women who used to talk dirty on the landlines, the ex-Marine who managed the talent, and even the young computer prodigy who built the system that helped turn calls into cash. Turns out, the callers keeping the line in business were dads who would never dream of consummating the relationship. (podcasts.apple.com) —Jensen Davis

For the holidays, the Gagosian Shop has re-stocked its supply of Mina Stone’s hard-to-find cookbook, Cooking for Artists. For those not familiar with Stone, she’s been cooking dinners for New York’s art-world elite since 2006, and preparing lunch at Urs Fischer’s Brooklyn studio for more than 10 years. The 70 Mediterranean-style recipes included here are inspired by Stone’s Greek heritage—lots of olive oil and lemon. The edition, designed by Fischer and Dominique Clausen, includes wondrous drawings by Matthew Barney, Elizabeth Peyton, Rob Pruitt, and many more. ($40, gagosianshop.com) —Elena Clavarino