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Six Days in Rome


Writing—and travel writing in particular—should transport a reader. Surprisingly few authors can successfully do it. Francesca Giacco pulls it off in her debut novel. In Six Days in Rome, Giacco, a former journalist, takes readers around the nearly 3,000-year-old city, past the surging fountains and crumbling terra-cotta walls. Along the way she tells an intimate tale of self-discovery. It’s the story of Emilia, an American artist who plans a trip to Rome for a romantic sojourn but ends up in the city alone, hit with a breakup just a few days before her flight to Italy. It’s a setup that lends itself to passion, exploration, and reflection, which Giacco pairs with evocative descriptions of pasta, glorious wines, magnificent museums, and architectural wonders. ($28, grandcentralpublishing.com) —Bridget Arsenault

Download

Vivino


After you drink enough wine in a night, it’s hard to remember which glasses you liked best—and decide which ones you should order next. The app Vivino helps with both. After you upload a photo of a wine label or manually enter the details, Vivino asks you to rate the bottle on a scale of one to five and, if you so choose, leave notes. While perusing a menu, you can use it to read about specific bottles, grapes, and regions, as well as read other users’ reviews. The app includes handy graphics that rate every bottle on a scale of light to bold, smooth to tannic, dry to sweet, and soft to acidic. When I first downloaded Vivino, I would coyly scroll through the app with my phone under the table, away from the knowledgable gaze of a waiter or sommelier. Now that I openly cross-reference a wine list with Vivino, I’ve received many a solemn nod of respect from a waiter. (apps.apple.com) —Jensen Davis

Clean

References


The worst part of spring closet cleaning is figuring out what to do with the clothes you’ve decided to toss. Do you sell them? Lug them to Goodwill? Throw them away? This quandary usually leaves me with a box full of clothes sitting in my apartment for months. Now I use References, a New York City–based company that does the deciding. They take items from all brands, and in any condition, to resell, donate, and recycle—depending on which will result in maximum impact and minimum waste. The best part? They’ll pick up the boxes from your apartment. (references.nyc) —Gracie Wiener

Cook

Dash Egg Cooker


Soft-boiled eggs seem like the easiest food a person could cook. However, they are not. Put eggs in a boiling pot of water for 10 minutes one day, and you get perfect yolks—not too runny but also not too firm. Do it the next day—same pot, for the same amount of time—the yolks come out hard as a rock. The Dash egg cooker, a cute machine that takes up little counter space, gives you six reliably well-cooked eggs every morning. Fill it with water, load the eggs into the nest-like contraption, and breakfast will be done before a pot of water could reach a vigorous boil. ($16.99, bydash.com) —Jensen Davis

Wear

Gucci


Oh, hello, white jeans season. It’s been too long. How have you been? Around Memorial Day, some of us at Air Mail HQ ditch blue jeans in favor of skirts, caftans, and white denim. Therefore, it’s important to get white jeans right. The pants, which are notoriously unforgiving, should fit like trousers and have dressy-ish finishes. Often, that will cost much more than lunch for two at Sant Ambroeus. (Ideally, they should be worn there.) Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, gets this. These high-rise jeans with a Horsebit detail skim the body in all the right ways. Some of you will take issue with the picayune gold chain on the back pocket, and we welcome the dialogue. But these pants are as sharp as can be, and are sure to inspire envy among the toniest enclaves of the summer set. But do prepare yourself for frequent trips to the dry cleaner. And might we suggest white wine instead of red? ($980, matchesfashion.com) —Ashley Baker

Store

Sophie Bille Brahe


Do you remove your jewelry at the end of a long, arduous day and place it in a rather uninspiring and too small—but sentimental—jewelry dish? Just us? Help is here. Fine-jewelry designer Sophie Bille Brahe must have had a similar problem, because she designed this sleek velvet box that’s just the thing to store a few pieces on a dressing table. (It also slides nicely into the drawer of a bedside table.) There’s no need to let your priceless JAR jewelry languish in plain sight—give it the stylish home it deserves until it’s rotated back into the safe. (Also, if you had a memory lapse on the Mother’s Day gift front, consider it a perfect make-good.) ($250, matchesfashion.com) —Ashley Baker

Issue No. 148
May 14, 2022
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Issue No. 148
May 14, 2022