This Sunday we had a few oysters from Eataly for our snack. Will is pretty good at shucking oysters, so they are easy to prepare at home. My favorite way to eat them is raw, although I recently had them steamed with butter on saltine crackers in Maryland, and they were pretty good. We are cocktail sauce people, with a little lemon, but you can also have them with a classic mignonette sauce. Being from Southern Maryland, it’s very regional to use cocktail sauce. Oysters are salty and clean tasting and the cocktail sauce takes the edge off the saltiness.

Here’s some highlights from last month:

Did I mention how cool my husband is? Check out his food photography in The New York Times Magazine here.

I liked this article about Martha Stewart. She has guts, and I like that.

This video showing a woman hand painting the edges of cards is beautiful.

My biggest achievement this month is completing the Writing Life Workshop. Chris Wells is an amazing teacher, one of the best I’ve ever had. I hope you’ll see a change in the blog in the coming weeks. I admit, I’m not much of a writer so it’s a real struggle for me to write a longer post. (I actually thought about only doing video posts, then I thought I was crazy!) This class has helped me embrace writing and story telling.

We all have a thing to learn about branding from a company that is hundreds of years old. Kikkoman (that’s right, the soy sauce) has this amazing story called Make Haste Slowly: The Kikkoman Creed. How many brands to you know that stick to brand values for over 300 years? This story knocked me off my feet.

Follow us on Instagram @houseofbrinson to see what we’re up to around the city. I’ll keep you updated on my house plants and succulent propagation. Fingers crossed my black thumb doesn’t take over, again.

Need to waste some time? Check out You Had One Job!