Hello, old fellows. I’m back again with your Town & Country recap. This month we have two well-bred beauties on the cover and plenty of nonsense inside,  including a back-to-the-Ivy-League packing list that includes an Hermes backpack and $1,000 Gucci loafers. I will say that since I started reading this magazine on the regular again, I’ve become rather – to use a total T&C word – fond of the essays and journalism they print. But that’s not really what I’m here to talk about, so let’s get to my ten favoritest, most Town & Country-est moments from this month’s issue.

 

 

 

1. From a little piece on new American country inns: “‘Our father is French,” Briar says, “so farm-to-table is nothing new here; we’ve always sourced local.'” Oh, okay. But farm-to-table is nothing new here (America) either. I get it, though. I would probably say the same thing to a T&C journalist as I’m sure every question they ask is specifically about “tradition”.

2. Things that unite the rich and the regular folks: L.L. Bean totes, jury duty, Patagonia jackets, DMV trips and pigs in a blanket. As a regular person who is afraid of jury duty and DMV trips, owns an L.L. Bean tote and a Patagonia jacket, and LOVES pigs in a blanket, I am inclined to agree with them.

3. Some of the questions Town & Country hopes that the documentary Salinger will answer:

– “How many prep school boys have ordered a scotch and soda (the drink Holden requests at the Lavender Room) since 1951’s publication of The Catcher in the Rye?”

– “Holden’s red hunting cap in The Catcher in the Rye – fashion statement or object of highbrow literary symbolism?”

– “For purposes of self-diagnosis, what are the telltale symptoms of banana fever?”

4. Brief excerpts from the Style Spy’s Jewelry coverage:

– “The wheeled plow changed everything for farmers during the Middle Ages. So it is with smartphones and the makers of stackable rings.”

– “If only Queen Victoria were alive today and living in Los Angeles.”

– “As the class admired the Mysterious Parrot brooch…”

5. There are two pages devoted to William and Kate’s new apartment in Kensington Palace which, coincidentally, Ralph Lauren has named his new home line after. Well, not quite two pages. They printed Wallis Simpson’s recipe for “Maryland Fried Chicken” on one-third of one page. (Anyone know where I can get a copy of her cookbook, Some Favorite Southern Recipes of the Duchess of Windsor?)

6. In for Fall: full brows, FLAWLESS SKIN, neutral lips.

7. Jack McCain’s wedding reception was held in the California Academy of Sciences’ African Hall because of his “fondness for Africa”.

8. I couldn’t even read the cover story, “Earth Angels”, about Claire Courtin-Clarins and Lauren Bush Lauren’s “charitable alliance” because I was so distracted by the repetition of “Lauren Bush Lauren” and also, in reference to her, “Bush Lauren”. Couldn’t she have just…not taken her husband’s last name? I know I’m not the first person who’s asked this question but C’MON.

(Also, I did actually skim the story and luckily caught the part where Claire Courtin-Clarins calls Rosa Parks her “new crush”.)

9. There’s an entire piece about ordering the cheapest things on the menu at power lunch spots in different cities, ostensibly “to judge how their kitchens deliver value to the high, to the mighty, and to everyone else.”

10. Max Irons gave basically the same interview to the New Yorker a few weeks ago about the monarchy and his new show, but I’m not gonna complain about the photos of him clad in cashmere and tweed. 

BONUS: There is an actually great personal essay on boarding school by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.