01/01

never too late

On the final day of 2025, I emerged from my New York flu-induced migraine vortex just in time to assume my role as an Upper West Side socialite extraordinaire and somehow managed to throw a NYE ~fête~. Flu and New Year’s Day haze aside, mentally I’m still in 2025; 2026 starts on the 2nd.

What began as a year spending the first day of 2025 sitting on my Roman balcony eating roasted peanuts and sipping on Sicilian Ichnusa beer, thrust me into twists, flips, and pirouettes I could have imagined yet would not have believed would manifest in the span of 12 months. It was a year of European film festivals, writing residencies, magical realism, a 16mm short film, e-bikes, spiaggias, lagos, volcanoes, vineyards, busts, antiquities, cigarettes (oops), mosquitos, heat waves, and sentiments words cannot capture.

Naturally, a year of many lives lived nourished and blossomed my artistic and literal palette. To a year of delicious hedonism, so long, farewell, and don’t be surprised if the trend continues into 2026 😉

Wet your appetite with a savior faire of 2025:

Favorite Films of 2025:

• It Was Just an Accident - Jafar Panahi

• Alice in the Cities - Wim Wenders

• Peter Hujar’s Day - Ira Sachs

• Sentimental Value - Joachim Trier

• Little Trouble Girls - Urška Djukić

• La Nouvelle Vague - Richard Linklater

• Four Nights a Dreamer - Robert Bresson

• Blue Heron- Sophy Romvari

• Nobody Knows - Hirokazu Kore-eda

• Tokyo Ga- Wim Wenders

• The Brutalist- Brady Corbet

• Out of the Blue - Dennis Hopper

• His Three Daughters - Azazel Jacobs

• A Traveller’s Needs - Hong Sang-soo

• Summer 1993 - Carla Simon

• Un homme et une femme - Claude Lelouch

• Quand Vient L’automne - François Ozon

Favorite Books of 2025:

• I Only Believe in Myself: Conversation with Murielle Joudet - Catherine Breillat

• Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Vegetarian - Han Kang

• I Regret Almost Everything - Keith McNally

• Room to Dream - David Lynch

• Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami

• Typhoid Mary - Anthony Bourdain

• Journey to the Edge of Life - Tezer Özlü

• Notes to John - Joan Didion

• Slow Days, Fast Company - Eve Babitz

• Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

• Midnight All Day - Hanif Kureishi

• Arka Sokak (poem), Attila İlhan

Favorite Treats of 2025 (new category!):

• Burgundy Chardonnays

• Nicole Chanrion’s Côte-de-Brouilly

• Strawberry Sumac cake

• Seafood Towers at Astoux et Brun, Cannes

• Normandy Oysters

• Yogurt with sour cherry compot

• Gildas

• Trout Amandine at Le Dauphin Paris

• Gramigna pasta in Bologna

• White Magnolias

• Sfogliatelle

• Marron glacé

• Sicilian white wines

• Eton Mess

• Picking produce off trees in Italy

film scouting, Istanbul, February 2025