I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

This is the Abandoned Building Series: forgotten spaces and places, reimagined. Each one unfolds in three layers: concept, design, and sensory world.

Consider this a small tour through my imagination.

Hold still.

A command to stop moving.

410 S 10th Street Edgefield, Nashville

Built in 1949. On 2.71 acres.

A 1,397-square-foot postwar filling station. Gasoline to bourbon. A place built for the fastest thing in American life, repurposed for the slowest.

Everyone in East Nashville has driven past and wondered why nobody’s touched it. Maybe it was waiting for someone who understood that stillness isn’t empty. It’s full.

The Concept:

Hold Still is a mercantile, a bourbon bar, and a workshop built around the conviction that the best things in life can’t be rushed.

It’s aged bourbon, sharp tailoring, field knives, and vintage. A hidden bourbon bar (get it, still) called The Fitting Room. There’s a fly-tying table, gloves and flasks, wild game cookbooks, and a leatherworker doing quiet repairs in the corner.

Hold Still isn’t nostalgia, it’s reverence.

The Philosophy: Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There

We believe the world moves too fast. That the power is in the pause. That patience is a lost art, and attention is the rarest luxury. We believe that stillness is a practice, a rebellion.

This is a place where stillness is currency and bourbon is gospel, where Paul Newman and Tom Selleck are saints. It’s for the ones who understand that fishing was never about catching fish, that silence between two people isn’t a problem to be solved, and that rebuilding a ‘67 Camaro takes as long as it takes, because rushing a machine is a sin.

To hold still is to distill.

To strip away the noise to find what remains.

That’s how bourbon is made. That’s how character is made.

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Rooms + Rituals:

The Front Room

A mercantile for the modern cowboy(or girl)-philosopher filled with vintage and hard to find oddities & epics.

The Old: Vintage Barbour jackets, bone-handled Buck knives, Woolrich throws, Vintage Levi’s, Field notes from unknown surveyors, shop tees from gas stations long gone, and things that earned their scars.

The New: Made by people who give a damn. Wax jackets that’ll outlive your kids, chore coats out of the last mill in Tennessee, knives from a man who’s been making them since before you were born. White’s Boots take six months because rushing ruins everything and the denim is sewn by people who ride motorcycles to work. The leather comes from a mountain man in Colorado who doesn’t have Instagram and flannels are from Vermont that weigh what a flannel should weigh. All of it made by hands that know what they’re doing, for hands that remember how to use things.

Nothing trendy, nothing that needs explaining, just gear that works and wears in.

The Fitting Room

Hidden behind a curtain, The Fitting Room is copper-lined, following the curve of that front window. There is always vinyl spinning because music worth hearing isn’t meant to be skipped. You’ll find one bartender who doesn’t talk much and the bottles behind him are arranged by age, youngest to the left, the oldest disappearing into shadow while each one waits its turn.

Above them hangs a single photograph: Paul Newman at Lime Rock, ‘78, dust on his face and a Budweiser in his hand. The house philosophy is etched in copper beneath him — Fast Cars. Slow Pours.

Like the rest of Hold Still, The Fitting Room rewards patience. The whiskey has been waiting for years. There's no reason to rush it now.

The Workbench

In the corner, an old-timer sits at a workbench. Some people call him Frank, others insist it's Carl. He's never corrected either of them. Hands like leather, working on leather, he brings things back from the dead: boots, belts, blade handles. He re-stitches, re-solves, burnishes, sharpens, and sands until each piece is ready for another lifetime.

There are no claim tickets or promised dates. Good work has its own calendar. A little brass bell will ring when a project’s finished. The sign above his head, hand-carved: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”

The Back Lot Car Club

Once a month, the gravel lot welcomes muscle cars, cruisers, and old trucks with stories older than their owners. The hoods are up and engines are humming. No trophies, no revving for attention. Just patience, pride, and a little bourbon to pass the time.

The Smoker Out Back

The fire is almost always lit. Some mornings it’s heating coffee in blackened kettles. By afternoon, briskets have settled into the smoker. On cool evenings, folks gather around the fire with a pour in hand, watching dinner come together the way it has for generations, slowly and without spectacle.

It’s ready, when it’s ready.

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Hold still.

For those with taste and patience.

Next week I’ll share the Hold Still brand design. The following week, what I would serve on the menu - which may be my favorite little cheeky idea I’ve ever dreamt up.

Come sit with us,

Lauren

For anyone just joining, or anyone who needs the recap: this series lets people peek into my brain. It’s a swirl of vision, design, brand, story, world-building, food, hospitality, curiosity, and audacity all rolled into one.

Inspired by Olivia Herrick’s creative prompt; I take a real, abandoned building and I create a concept around what I wish would come alive there. The cadence is; Part One: the concept and the building itself - the bones, the story, the argument for why this particular shell deserves to be reimagined.

Part Two is the brand I would build there - the vision, the world, the language it would speak.

Part Three is the piece I look forward to most. What would I put on the menu? Here are the recipe development for a couple menu items.

Nicolò is a courtyard bistro, wine shop, and cheese counter, built around the idea that a glass of wine is less beverage and more confession.

Nicolò (Courtyard Bistro) & Fromagerie de Lucinda (Cheese Counter)

Triple Crème & Stone Fruit Warmed triple crème, wild honey, thyme, stone fruit in season.

225 grams triple crème cheese, whole wheel
2 tablespoons wild honey
3 fresh thyme sprigs
2 ripe stone fruit (peaches or plums), sliced
0.3 teaspoons flaky salt
1 baguette, sliced and toasted

Warm the cheese: Set 225 grams triple crème cheese (e.g. Saint-André), whole wheel on an oven-safe dish and warm in a 175°C (350°F) oven until soft through the center but still holding its shape.

Dress it: Drizzle the warm cheese with 2 tablespoons wild honey and scatter 3 fresh thyme sprigs over the top.

Add the fruit: Arrange 2 ripe stone fruit (peaches or plums), sliced around and over the cheese, then finish with 0.3 teaspoons flaky salt.

Serve: Serve immediately with 1 baguette, sliced and toasted for spreading.

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Socca à la Fontaine Chickpea crêpe, with charred lemon, fleur de sel. A Niçoise street food best eaten with your hands.

120 grams chickpea flour
240 milliliters water, room temperature
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoons fine sea salt
0.5 teaspoons cracked black pepper
1 lemon, halved
0.5 teaspoons fleur de sel, to finish

Make the batter: Whisk 120 grams chickpea flour, 240 milliliters water, room temperature, 2 tbsp of the 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided, 1 teaspoons fine sea salt, and 0.5 teaspoons cracked black pepper together until smooth. Cover and rest at room temperature.

Heat the pan: Set a cast-iron or carbon-steel skillet under the broiler (or over high heat) with the remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided until just smoking.

Cook the socca: Pour the batter into the hot pan, tilting to spread it thin. Cook until the edges lift and char and the center sets.

Char the lemon: While the socca cooks, sear the cut sides of the 1 lemon, halved in a dry pan until blackened.

Finish and serve: Tear the socca into rough pieces (never slice it). Squeeze the charred lemon over the top and finish with 0.5 teaspoons fleur de sel, to finish. Eat with your hands.

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Moules Lucinda Mussels steamed in white wine, shallot, and whatever herbs you have in the garden, served with bread on the side.

900 grams mussels, scrubbed and debearded
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cups dry white wine
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, tarragon), chopped
1 crusty bread, for serving

Sweat the aromatics: Heat 1 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tbsp of the 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided in a wide pot over medium heat. Add 2 shallots, thinly sliced and 2 garlic cloves, minced, cook until soft and translucent.

Add wine: Pour in 1 cups dry white wine, bring to a simmer, and let reduce slightly.

Steam the mussels: Add 900 grams mussels, scrubbed and debearded, cover, and steam until the shells open.

Finish the broth: Discard any unopened mussels. Off the heat, swirl in the remaining 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided and 4 tablespoons fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, tarragon), chopped.

Serve: Ladle mussels and broth into bowls with 1 crusty bread, for serving on the side — for the broth you’ll pretend you’re not drinking straight from the bowl.

La Planche du Soir The evening’s cheese, chosen by feel - something firm, something bloomed. Served with quince paste, marcona almonds, anchovies, and a heel of bread.

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Cervelle de Canut A Lyonnaise fresh-cheese spread, whipped with shallot, chive, and vinegar served with French radishes for dragging through it.

480 grams fromage blanc or well-drained fresh cheese
1 shallot, finely minced
1 garlic clove, finely minced
3 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped
1 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
0.5 teaspoons fine sea salt
0.3 teaspoons cracked black pepper
1 cups French breakfast radishes, for serving

Whip the base: In a bowl, whisk 480 grams fromage blanc or well-drained fresh cheese until smooth and slightly aerated.

Add the aromatics: Fold in 1 shallot, finely minced, 1 garlic clove, finely minced, and 3 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped.

Season: Whisk in 1 tablespoons white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 0.5 teaspoons fine sea salt, and 0.3 teaspoons cracked black pepper until fully combined.

Chill: Cover and refrigerate to let the flavors marry.

Serve: Serve cold with 1 cups French breakfast radishes, for serving for dragging through it.

La Petite Fontaine (Wine Bar)

We don’t ask what you’re drinking. We ask how you’re feeling.

Like: ‘missing someone you shouldn’t’ — Carmen brought this St. Laurent from Dale Ricci’s Vineyard in Carneros. “It’s a lovely strawberry color with a bright nose of watermelons, crushed raspberries, and strawberry ice cream. The palate is lemon, kumquats, and tangerines wrapped in a chalky, foamy meringue.”

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ShopMy Nicolò picks:

Listen to the playlist here.

That’s Nicolò, start to finish. The Abandoned Building Series will be back again soon with a new building to argue for.

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But wait, there’s more..

This story time is worth noting somewhere, because it led me down a path of attempting to find investors and purchase the property. When I initially launched this ABS, I cannot count the amount of people that begged for it to be real.

So, my little bright eyed and bushy tail self reached out to the owner. He's a real estate figure in town who owns old churches now becoming boutique hotels, entire corridors of neighborhoods, and the historic arcade downtown. If anyone in Nashville was going to understand a pitch built on story, it was him.

Because 908 Meridian Street had garnered previous interest as a brewery, the renovation was already halfway to a plan. Somewhere in a file, a line-item renovation scope already existed - shell, envelope, structural, utilities, all priced out. I didn't have to convince anyone the building could be saved. Someone had already done that math. I just had to convince them it should be saved for this (for me).

So I built the case and met with an architect. Two asks, split cleanly: the owner would restore the shell and the landmark - the roof, the structure, the historic finishes, the part that protects his legacy and his asset regardless of what goes in it.

Separately, an investor group funds the buildout of Nicolò itself and a small boutique inn upstairs - suites with soaking tubs and fireplaces, a courtyard and parlor seating downstairs for Nicolò, La Petite Fontaine at the wine counter, Fromagerie de Lucinda in the front sitting room.

The math, roughly: at eight keys and steady occupancy, the rooms alone pencil to something in the mid-six-figures a year. F&B and retail, modeled conservatively against the seat count, add close to the same again. Depending on how many suites we built and how the phasing went, the different scenarios landed the whole property somewhere between roughly one million and two-and-a-half million a year in revenue, with a buildout cost in the low seven figures once you added the inn’s bathrooms, the kitchen, the fire and safety work a landmark like this requires.

I took meetings with Nashville real estate investors and preservationists interested in saving the heartbeat and history of Nashville. I sat across the table and walked through the pro forma like it was any other client engagement, because by then, it wasn’t a fictional concept to me.

I don’t have a tidy ending for you. I guess I wanted you to see how far “what if” can actually travel - because that’s the real thread running under every installment of this series. It’s about what happens when you take your own imagination seriously.

Come sit with us,
Lauren

I was told not to buy a nine house.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, buckle up.

Somewhere in the emotional chaos that is house hunting, I fell down the middle of the night rabbit hole of house numerology. Apparently, you add up the numbers in your address until they become a single digit, and each number is said to carry a different kind of energy.

1234 becomes 1+2+3+4, becomes 10, becomes 1. That single number is said to carry the vibe of the house.

One is new beginnings. Four is stability. Six is family. Eight is abundance.

Nine? Nine is completion. Closure and wholeness. Several of the houses we had loved throughout the search had been nines.

I was told not to buy one. Naturally, we did it anyway.

an old photo of my baby, because I am feeling sentimental

This whole process of finding a house has been much harder than I expected. We worked with the best realtor in Nashville, and still, it tested every part of me. It broke me a little, honestly. I thought this part would be fun. I thought it would be easy, or at least easier. 

Not because anything went wrong, exactly, but because looking for a home while still carrying the last version of you is its own kind of weight. 

House-hunting has a way of becoming a mirror you didn't ask for. Every property is a reflection of who you think you are now versus who you were when you bought the last one. Every rejected offer asks you somehow whether you're still the person who wanted that particular thing, if your desires are aligned, or whether you've already become someone else and just haven't caught up to the news.

I thought I was looking for a house.

Instead, it felt like life kept asking me who I wanted to become.

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I’ve always wanted a little bit of land. Somewhere quieter. But my husband works for the Titans (and we are very social), so we needed to stay tethered and in close proximity to downtown. The map in my mind and the map in reality didn't quite overlap.

Eventually, I zoomed out.

And there it was.

A place I'd been inexplicably drawn to forever.. East adjacent. A little bit of land. Close enough to the city. Somehow exactly what I had been asking for, even though I hadn't known how to ask.

And the address reduces to nine.

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The day we learned our offer had been accepted was one of the strangest days I've had in a long time.

Old stories started arriving to say goodbye. People from other seasons of life appeared unexpectedly. Conversations circled back to chapters I thought had long since ended. Memories I'd forgotten found their way into the day, almost as if they had one last thing to say before kindly stepping aside. Things too specific to file under coincidence - fragments of both of our histories that circled back uninvited.

None of it was dramatic. It was gentle, like life tying up loose ends I didn't know were still hanging.

I don't think we ended up in a nine house by accident. I think we were finally ready for one.

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Whether you believe in numerology or not doesn't really matter.

What I know is that we spent months looking for square footage, and what we actually found was permission to let the old storylines finish their sentences, to walk into the next chapter whole.

I know that sometimes we arrive at thresholds where the old version of ourselves can only come so far. There are identities that once protected us but eventually become too small. Stories that helped us survive but keep us from becoming the best versions of ourselves. Coping mechanisms that become so familiar we mistake them for personality.

There comes a point when healing isn't about fixing what's broken, it's about recognizing that you've already done the work, and allowing yourself to stop carrying what no longer belongs to you.

Completion isn't loss, it is integration. It's looking back with gratitude instead of longing.

It's allowing the younger version of yourself to rest because she doesn't have to keep proving she deserved the life she's now living.

Maybe that's what this house represents for us - a completion in the sense that we don't have to keep rehearsing old narratives anymore.

And maybe this next chapter isn't about becoming someone new, maybe it's about becoming someone whole.

Not because I believe an address can determine a life - because I believe there are moments when we're invited to leave old versions of ourselves at the door.

And I can't think of a more beautiful way to begin a new chapter.

Cheers,
Lauren

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I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

This is the Abandoned Building Series: forgotten spaces and places, reimagined. Each one unfolds in three layers: concept, design, sensory world.

Consider this a small tour through my imagination.

I gave a little brief backstory of this series here last week.

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908 MERIDIAN STREET, CLEVELAND PARK - NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

What if we imagined possibility into places left behind?

For me, it began with a scene. You know, the one in An Affair to Remember, where Nickie (Nicoló) Ferrante takes Terry to his Janou’s apartment and courtyard in Villefranche-sur-Mer. It’s romantic, but not precious - a place shaped by time and affection.

“What is it about this place? There is something about it that makes you want to whisper. It’s so peaceful here. It’s like another world.“

That scene felt like the perfect muse for this abandoned building project: the McGavock House in East Nashville’s Cleveland Park. Reminder - the place is real, but this is a fictional case study purely for creative practice.

Long before anyone lived here, this was six hundred and forty acres claimed by a man named David McGavock, surveyed and drawn onto a map in August of 1786. Land, then water, then a house.

The property split and re-split through inheritance, the way land does when nobody can agree on who deserves it most. One piece went to a daughter, Lucinda. She inherited the southwest corner of the original tract - ninety-four acres, “including the building,” the deed says, as if the house were an afterthought instead of the whole point.

Built in the 1840s and once called Fountain Blue for the two springs that once ran the property, the home carries a thread of French influence - a limestone foundation, natural light that lands just right, and imported wallpaper brought over in 1844 by Lucinda McGavock’s husband (more on that later).

The Concept:

Nicoló’s a courtyard bistro. Inside is a wine shop called La Petite Fontaine and a cheese counter known as Fromagerie de Lucinda. Proveyour of soft cheeses, secrets, and something chilled to take the edge off.

It’s the sort of place where you stop in for five minutes and leave five hours later. Where the person beside you wasn’t part of the plan. Where every glass, every glance, feels like a plot twist waiting to happen.

Guests enter through wrought-iron gates into a courtyard shaded by old trees. Inside, shelves are lined with bottles from small producers across Provence, Corsica, and coastal Italy. There’s always something chilled and fizzy, especially pink champagne.

One of the original parlors becomes the cheese room, filled with triple-crèmes, blues, and blooming rinds. Toward the back, a tiny kitchen turns out small plates meant for sharing, or pretending not to share. Socca, panisse, herbed mussels, and stone fruit with herbed cream (recipes for this imagined menu, coming soon).

You can come alone, or bring someone you shouldn’t.

La Petite Fontaine

Named after the home’s original title, Fountain Blue, La Petite Fontaine is the heart of the house: always flowing, always full. “Until the fountain runs dry.” The wine counter at Nicolò isn’t a bar. It’s a confession booth. A mood ring. A soft landing.

We don’t ask what you’re drinking. We ask how you’re feeling.
’The Fontainistes’ behind the counter are part sommelier, part oracle.

They pour like they’re keeping your secrets. They’ll hand you something dry and cold when you’re flushed from a kiss. Something wild and bruised when you miss someone you shouldn’t.

There’s always a glass already half-poured. Notes scrawled on a tag: “Tastes like the one who got away.” or “Pairs well with making the first move.” At 4 p.m., Le Premier Verre begins. We open a bottle and pour until it’s gone. No menu listing. No price.

You don’t have to stay long. But you might.

Because here - the cheese knows your name. And the wine remembers who you were (and who you were with) last week.

HOUSE RULES

No checking the time.
No loud goodbyes.
Cheese before reason.
Order for the table.
Leave room for dessert and changing your mind.

We believe in soft voices and slow pours.
We keep secrets until you’re ready to tell them.
We do “just one glass” that turns into three.

At Nicolò, we don’t do reservations.
We do encounters. Mistakes worth repeating.

And if you fall in love -
you’re in very good company.

THINGS I MAY DESIGN LATER:

LOVE LETTERS NEVER SENT : a wooden box on the counter where guests can slip in a note—to someone they miss, someone they love, or a future version of themselves. A note that reads: “Write what you’ll never say.” We’ll use these letters as wrapping paper for cheese to go. A quiet way to let something go—or pass something on.

LUCINDA’S : a speakeasy disguised in shadow and silk. Accessible only to those who know where to knock (or flirt). Lucinda was known for hosting candlelit salons and disappearing without saying goodbye. Or so they say. Now, behind a velvet curtain and an unmarked door - Lucinda’s returns, although some say she never left. Where every drink comes with a story, whether you ask or not.

NAPKINS : “Wipe your mouth. Then say what you mean.”

MATCHBOOKS : “Pairs well with candlelight and plausible deniability.”

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PART TWO; and story time of how this concept almost really came to life, next time. Including more on the brand, design, and recipes I’d imagine at Nicoló.

*Peep the blue wallpaper peeling right off the walls. I've turned into such a history nerd in this process.

Lucinda’s husband was Jeremiah George Harris, editor and owner of The Nashville Union newspaper, a Polk ally, and - for a stretch in 1843 - the U.S. Commercial Agent in Europe. He went abroad in 1843 and returned in 1844.

So the timeline is: he’s overseas on government business, comes home in 1844, and immediately throws himself into expanding the house. The renovation more than doubled the home’s size - the original Federal style was overhauled into Greek Revival, with two new southern rooms built on a foundation of machine-cut limestone, considered cutting-edge at the time. Among the updates: blue French wallpaper.

life lately, on film

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When I was twenty-two, I used to drive through Whites Creek and park in front of an old stone building with a creek out back. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it. No obvious reason to stop. I just loved that little intersection, those historic structures, the feeling that I was looking at something in the in-between of what it was and before it had decided what it would become.

It’s how I think about almost everything. When I meet someone, I'm interested in the version of them that's still unfolding. When I work with a client I’m teasing out the story underneath the story, the shape trying to take form. When I walk a property I can visualize what it will become.

Maybe this is optimism. Maybe it’s delusion. But I know that most of the best things in my life began as an act of imagination.

Lately I’ve become fascinated by how much of life depends on our willingness to see possibility. To hold two realities at once. To see what is while remaining open to what could be.

This has been one of those years that, when recounted aloud, sounds suspiciously like someone having a breakdown. My son turned one. My husband took on a new role. We sold our house. Moved into what has become known as our “summer residence.” Bought a new property. Are packing up this transitional house to move again. Meanwhile my closest friends became each other’s closest friends, creating a sort of accidental supergroup that runs twenty deep and there is always something to celebrate. There are school tours and workouts and paint swatches and client calls and preparing my body for another pregnancy. There are new versions of ourselves arriving all at once.

By all accounts, plenty happening.

And yet beneath all of that motion is a feeling I have a harder time describing.

Instead of rushing toward certainty, I find myself paying attention to things I would have once dismissed because they weren’t immediately useful. I am craving something I haven’t historically valued : slow growth. To trust what’s happening beneath the surface before demanding a visible result.

Is this maturity?

A previous version of me would have said that is passive or less ambitious, but I am choosing to see it as softening.

Life gives you enough opportunities to harden if you let it.

Between love and life and loss and the particular mindfuck of running a business and circumstances that are mine to keep - I became incredibly proficient in bracing. I learned how to anticipate, to solve, to keep moving, to hold everything together. Unflappable, at least from the outside.

But underneath it, quietly, was this core desire to stay open. To soften into things rather than brace against them. To stay open long enough for something unexpected to reveal itself.

I've come to think of that softening as a posture toward possibility. It is the willingness to stop demanding an answer and a willingness to stay curious.

The world gives us endless opportunities to become practical. Efficient. Realistic. But there is another skill I value more with time : to stand in a place that appears ordinary and ask a different question.

What if we imagined possibility into this space?

Not because every idea should become reality, but because the question itself changes how we move through the world.

It makes us more attentive. More curious. More generous.

We start looking for hidden doors instead of dead ends.

My husband is the director of food, beverage, and merchandise for the Titans’ new stadium. Which sounds operational - and is - but what it actually means is that we spend a lot of time over dinner doing what I imagine most couples probably do not do at dinner, which is ask questions like: how can you tell a greater story with what you’re building.

What should this place feel like?

Who is it for?

What story does it tell?

What happens when someone walks through the door?

I’ve realized those questions follow me everywhere. Into client work. Into spaces still waiting for someone to notice them. Into pieces of land. Into homes.

We weren’t supposed to buy property outside of town. But we’ve been circling East Nashville for months, not quite finding what we wanted. Then we found acreage near Whites Creek with big, mature trees. We got back in the car and Shaun said: this is ours. A house, certainly. A place for our family. A garden. Maybe something more. (In a plot twist that feels almost too on-the-nose to be true, I've found myself part of an effort to track down the owner of that very Whites Creek building I previously mentioned. But that's a story for another day...)

I’ve find myself standing on that property the same way I find myself standing in front of every abandoned building. Asking the same question.

The Abandoned Building Series began as play. A thought experiment. A creative exercise.

A posed question - what if we imagined possibility into places left behind? - and I have not been able to put it down. What if, instead of asking what would be profitable, practical, or expected, we asked what belonged? What if we looked at neglected places and imagined them into their fullest expression?

I find a structure everyone has stopped paying attention to. Then I name the place, build the story, design the interiors, create the atmosphere, shape the menu, decide what kind of person would know to find the door.

It’s the most direct explanation of my work I’ve ever produced - which is funny, because it was supposed to be just for fun.

LinkedIn says I am a “brand strategist,” which is true, but incomplete. What I actually do is look for latent potential. I look for the thing that’s already trying to become itself and help create the conditions for it to emerge. Sometimes that’s a company. Sometimes it’s a restaurant. Sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes it’s a piece of property.

This exercise has brought me so much joy, that I’m moving the series here. Once a month, a new building, a new world. The design, the objects, the menu. What it would feel like if you found the door.

What I thought was a series about forgotten places turned out to be a series about paying attention, listening, and becoming.

Maybe that's all optimism really is. Not believing everything will work out, but refusing to look at a place, a person, or a season of life and assume you've already seen everything it has to offer.

These little essays have been very cathartic for me in a season of massive transition, so thank you for being here.

Come sit with us,
Lauren

I think it was my brain’s awkward attempt at reassurance. A way of saying: you are still yourself. Maybe even more yourself now.

Out of that time came the Abandoned Building Series. See; Part One. Part Two. A creative prompt : What if we imagined possibility into places left behind?

Part love letter to the forgotten architecture of Nashville. Part exploration of the spaces and brands I wish existed inside them.

Welcome to Part Three.

I’m moving the series to Substack because it deserves a more permanent home, especially as the website undergoes a long overdue rebrand and renovation of its own.

We went a week without reliable laundry in the new house. You adapt. And you think, more than is probably reasonable, about laundromats. I’ve never actually used one, which probably tells you everything about my tendency to romanticize ordinary life.

And somewhere in the middle of that spiral, I found traces of Madeline. Story goes, that in 2015, Cleveland Park said goodbye to the laundry cafe on the corner of Meridian and Douglas. I’d never heard of it until recently, but once I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I found fragments of proof online: an abandoned Yelp page, a few blurry photos, comments from people who seemed oddly emotional about a laundromat closing.

And then I started wondering what might have been going on inside that building for the last decade.

The idea split open.

Here is what I think happened - not a speakeasy exactly. Something softer. Stranger. More feminine.

Belladonna. A nightly feminine underground, operating out of a former laundromat on Douglas Ave.

The kind of place that has no business existing and has always existed, in one form or another where women found each other. Like you stumbled into an institution women built quietly because they needed somewhere to put their intelligence, grief, appetite, beauty, rage, intuition, and humor. All of it - together. At a table. After dark.

Inside, women learn the things nobody formally teaches us.

301 DOUGLAS AVE — CLEVELAND PARK — NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

Someone told you about it.

That’s the only way this works. There’s no signage. No website. No Instagram. The windows stay dim. Most people walk past it without noticing. Most people are supposed to.

You know it exists because a woman you trust told you to look for the woman rolling pasta outside under a string of dim lights - not an aesthetic choice, she loves fresh air, and the pasta genuinely needs rolling. If you find her, she may or may not invite you in.

Inside, the feeling of luxury lives in the atmosphere more than the objects - built slowly over time, layer by layer. A room becomes seductive the same way a woman does.

The walls are the kind of deep plaster that absorbs sound and secrets. Every surface glows and the lighting is terrible in the most flattering way possible. Lamps and candles only - overhead lighting is forbidden.

Women arrive carrying various types of hunger that needs tending. Someone arriving straight from a date she intends to complain about beautifully. Someone else fresh off a flight. Silk dresses under trench coats. Gold jewelry. Some still smell faintly like their children’s shampoo. The elder women move through the room with a terrifying calm and conversations overlap and drift between generations at the long table that runs through the center of the building like a spine.

The kitchen behaves more like an inherited family system with women who rotate through it continuously. One cooking the pasta. Another charring citrus over the stove. Someone arriving and instinctively taking over the salad because her hands need something to do while she tells the story properly. Recipes exist, technically, but mostly in the bodies of the women making them. The food changes nightly depending on who showed up, what somebody’s grandmother used to make when things were bad, or what sounded good after the second bottle of wine. Measurements are vague, instincts are trusted, and every woman swears her version is the correct one. There’s always too much food and somehow never leftovers.

Toward the back, past the noise and heat of dinner, the building narrows into smaller rooms. There are velvet card and mahjong tables in the back room overseen by terrifyingly glamorous older women who will absolutely take your money and teach you something in the process. But the games themselves are beside the point - the real lesson is learning how to read a room. Restraint. Timing. Intuition. Emotional control. How to know when someone is bluffing. How to fold, and mean it.

There is a bar that stretches along the far wall that feels somewhere between an Italian pharmacy and your most glamorous aunt’s bathroom. The one with the interesting perfume bottles you weren’t supposed to touch. Cold spoons. Bitter tinctures. Rose water in a silver atomizer. Hand creams. Loose cigarettes. Heirloom jewelry on velvet perches not intended for anyone's ungrateful niece, left by women who came before. You take one thing. You leave one thing.

You can order a perfect martini, obviously. Extra cold, very dry, straight up, lemon twist cut paper thin - which is the right way, in my opinion.

But you can also ask for what you actually need..

Something fortifying.
Something clarifying.
Something for courage.
Something for after a bad date.
Something restorative after spending all day being needed by other people.

And somehow, between the martinis and the perfume and the women leaning against the marble counter talking quietly over melting ice, something else gets exchanged there too.

Not advice exactly, but something older than advice.

The particular intelligence that develops when women spend years studying each other closely. Who is lonely, who is pretending, who needs tending to, who is unraveling, and who is coming back to life after getting lost inside her own life. Nothing here is formally taught - it moves sideways and through proximity. Through a gesture at a table, or the way someone carries themselves. And suddenly you understand something about restraint, confidence, and desire without a single word being said. You may sit next to someone at the long table and by the end of the night you understand that she has survived something and come out the other side still hungry.

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The name felt right.

Belladonna - used throughout history by women medicinally, ceremonially, cosmetically. It was called dangerous by people who couldn't control it.

Medieval Italian women used the dilating drops cosmetically - a few drops in the eye and your pupils go dark and wide. The effect was considered irresistible.

Bella donna. Beautiful woman.

It was in the kits of midwives. In the hands of healers. Used ceremonially by women who understood threshold states - birth, death, fever, grief. The plant is mysterious and healing and beautiful all at once. It has always known something about the relationship between danger and vision, between beauty and power, between what is simply — ungovernable.

So does this place.

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Belladonna Philopsophy:

Never accept advice from unhappy women.
Bad energy clings to acrylic nails.
Your grandmother survived worse in better lipstick.
Women can sense hunger in each other.
Never chase anything that requires self-abandonment.
A nervous system needs beauty.
Keep your voice low and your standards unreasonable.
Appetite is holy.
Intuition is inherited.

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Nobody tells you that becoming a mother makes you ravenous for other women.

Not in a soft way. Not in a “it takes a village” way, but in a primal way. In the way you suddenly understand, with your whole body, that you were never supposed to do any of this alone. You begin craving proximity to women who have already survived the exact thing you’re living through. Women who can look at you once and understand the strange expansion of self without requiring explanation.

And maybe that’s really the whole point of Belladonna. Just women who know things.

Women who have lived long enough to become intuitive in that terrifying, cellular way. Women who can read a silence. Women who know when someone is lying because they’ve lied before too. Women who understand appetite. Reinvention. Grief. Seduction. Loneliness. Timing. Joy.

Belladonna is about the possibility that femininity exists as its own underground language. Built from beauty and appetite and intuition and emotional intelligence. Passed woman to woman, generation to generation.

And maybe, if you know where to look, it still does.

Come hungry.

How did you build a brand for a pretend secret society, you ask? Here is a glimpse into one of the directions I developed for this concept. More to come.

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Did I make a ShopMy with items I would imagine in this space? You bet your ass I did.

Come sit with us,

Lauren

I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

(photo by on our various adventures lately)

My first real job out of design school was an art director at a record label. And the first piece of feedback I received from my boss was “you struggle with contentment.”

I was 22. I thought he was wrong.

I have spent the better part of 20 years figuring out how he was right.

22 is about the same age I started making vision boards.

I update it every year - pull the images that still feel true, let go of the ones that don’t. It lives on my wall. I see it every single day. Constitutionally oriented toward becoming. Land. A barn in the distance. Dogs running through tall grass. Rolling hills at golden hour. A house I’ve sketched so many times I could draw it in the dark - the layout of every room, where the light comes in, how the kitchen opens to the courtyard.

We call it the U-shape. Present tense. As if it already exists somewhere, waiting for us to catch up to it.

I have been devoted to this vision for most of my adult life.

It started, or at least sharpened, at a Lululemon retreat in 2016. I had joined their corporate team to consult on how a brand should live differently across micro-audiences — the Miami store should feel distinct from the Brooklyn store; that kind of work. Along the way I got to meet remarkable people and do incredible things like an eleven-mile silent hike in the mountains outside of Asheville. We began the day with a meditation I have never fully left.

The guide said something like: Close your eyes. Imagine you are waking up ten years from now. Before you even open your eyes — what does the bed feel like? What do you hear? What do you smell? When you put your feet on the floor, what does it feel like under them? You walk to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Who is looking back at you? Are they rested? Exhausted? Proud?

It went on for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. Every teeny tiny detail of a single imagined day, rendered in full sensory resolution. And then we hiked eleven miles in silence, and that “day” was burned into me like something that had already happened.

I know it’s become trendy to talk about this stuff, but here is what a decade of reading more books than I can count, from Dispenza to Goddard to the dog-eared Infinite Potential on my shelf - has taught me: you don’t attract what you want. You attract what you are. The work isn’t visualization as wishful thinking. It’s becoming, in your body and your nervous system, the person who already has the thing.

The brain can’t fully distinguish between a vividly imagined experience and a real one. The neural pathways are the same. Which means devotion isn’t passive. It’s neurological.

The vision board is devotion made visible.

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Two(ish) years ago, my husband and I were on a walk, talking through what we wanted to do next. We'd outgrown our house. A baby was coming. We needed to move, and we'd been circling the question for months - where to land, what the next chapter actually looked like.

We agreed: we want to be in East Nashville.

Our whole lives are there. Our friends — the kind who drop by without texting first, who show up with wine on the porch, who don’t just know your kids but participate in raising them. Our favorite bakeries. The coffee shop we’ve been going to for years. The bar with the fire pit and the live music you can walk to. East Nashville is not just a neighborhood we like - it is the texture of the life we actually want.

And then, almost in the same breath, I thought about my vision board. The land. The barn. The U-shape.

None of that is East Nashville.

It wasn't a crisis. It was a question I'd been avoiding. For a while I'd been treating these two things as sequential - East Nashville now, U-shape eventually, a patient line leading from one to the other.

I had been so devoted to the long dream that I'd been treating it like a fixed point everything else had to orbit - rather than one true thing that could coexist with other true things. There is a version of devotion that is really just attachment. You hold the image so tightly that you forget to ask whether it fits right now. Whether you're honoring the vision or just performing loyalty to it.

So I made a second vision board for this season and saved the file GAP-YEAR.PDF.

Not because I’m giving up on anything. But because I’m a person who believes, in my bones, that what you give your attention to grows - and right now, I want to grow something specific. Proximity. Community. Friends in the kitchen. A baby on a hip and a neighbor at the door. Little ones who grow up knowing their people are close. A Thursday night that turns into something totally unexpected because we live close enough for that to happen.

I looked at it and thought: this is also mine. This has always been mine too.

Here is what I’ve come to understand about holding two devotions at once: it requires more maturity than holding one. It’s easy to be devoted to a single vision - to orient everything toward that fixed point and call it focus. It’s harder, and I think truer, to tend a long dream carefully while living fully inside the present one. To trust that honoring where you are doesn’t cost you where you’re going.

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We sold our house. We're looking the next right thing - walking through rooms, doing the math, getting a feel for what's possible in a market that doesn't make it easy. It's logistically consuming and occasionally frustrating and completely, deliberately chosen.

One right step at a time.

That is what devotion looks like right now - the practiced, faithful, sometimes inconvenient act of showing up for where you actually are - while keeping the vision board hanging on your wall, just in case you forget where you’re headed.

I haven’t forgotten.

I’m just taking the long way.

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Here are a couple of recipes that require the long way. You can’t rush them, but they’re worth it.

SOURDOUGH WAFFLES WITH BERRY COMPOTE AND ORANGE HONEY CRÈMÈ FRAÎCHE

For the Waffles:

1 cup sourdough discard
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Orange-Honey Crème Fraîche:

1 cup crème fraîche
2 tablespoons honey
Zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice

For the Berry Compote:

2 cups mixed berries
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Garnishes:

Fresh mint leaves, for garnish
Edible flowers, for garnish (optional)
Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sourdough discard, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not overmix; the batter should be slightly lumpy.

Preheat your waffle iron according to the manufacturer’s instructions and lightly grease it with non-stick spray or a small amount of melted butter. Pour the batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook until the waffles are golden brown and crisp, following your waffle iron’s guidelines. Keep the cooked waffles warm in a low oven while you prepare the remaining waffles.

For the fig compote, combine the quartered figs, honey, water, lemon juice, and ground cinnamon in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the figs are soft and the mixture has thickened, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, mix the crème fraîche with honey, orange zest, and orange juice until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

For the berry compote, combine the mixed berries, honey, water, lemon juice, and ground cinnamon in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the berries are soft and the mixture has thickened, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

To serve, place a waffle on each plate, top with a generous spoonful of fig compote, and add a dollop of orange-honey crème fraîche. Garnish with fresh mint leaves, edible flowers, toasted nuts, and a dusting of powdered sugar if desired.

LEMON CHICKEN WITH CRISPY RHUBARB

Ingredients for the Chicken Marinade:

2 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp high-quality Dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp finely ground sea salt
½ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2-3 rhubarb stalks, shaved/peeled (reserve shavings for topping)

For the Chicken and Crispy Rhubarb:

1 ½ pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs (about 5 small thighs)
1 lemon, sliced
Olive oil, as needed
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
Optional: ¼ teaspoon lemon garlic seasoning or lemon pepper
1 red onion, sliced into sections
Pinch of fresh tarragon or thyme leaves for garnish

Prepare the Marinade:

In a blender, combine balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, olive oil, minced garlic, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Blend until smooth. Add the peeled rhubarb stalks to the blender and pulse until the stalks are finely incorporated into the marinade.

Marinate the Chicken:

Clean and trim the chicken thighs. Place them in a large bowl or zip-top bag. Pour the marinade over the chicken, ensuring each piece is well-coated. Let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or overnight for deeper flavor.

Cook the Chicken:

Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in an oven-safe skillet or cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade (reserve the marinade) and sear each thigh until golden, about 3 minutes per side. Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken. Arrange lemon slices atop the chicken thighs. Scatter the onions around the chicken and drizzle them with olive oil; season with salt and pepper.

Bake:

Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toss the rhubarb shavings with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and optional lemon garlic seasoning or lemon pepper. Add the rhubarb shavings to the skillet, spreading them around the chicken. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and the rhubarb is crispy.

Serve:

Once done, remove the skillet from the oven. Sprinkle with fresh tarragon or thyme. Serve the chicken hot, garnished with crispy rhubarb shavings and accompanied by the roasted red onions.

LOW COUNTRY BOIL FOR FOUR

1 lb (450g) of large shrimp, shell-on and deveined
4 small lobster tails (optional for a twist)
2 lbs (900g) of small red potatoes, halved
4 ears of corn, shucked and quartered
1 lb (450g) smoked sausage, such as andouille, sliced into 1-inch pieces
2 lemons, halved
1 head of garlic, top sliced off to expose cloves
2 large onions, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup (60 ml) of Old Bay seasoning
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
Fresh parsley, chopped for garnish
Salt to taste
4 to 5 quarts of water

Prepare the Broth:

In a large stockpot, bring the water to a boil. Add the Old Bay seasoning, cayenne pepper, garlic head, lemons, and onions. Squeeze the lemons slightly before dropping them into the pot to release their juices.

Cook the Potatoes:

Add the potatoes to the boiling broth and cook for about 10 minutes, or until they start to become tender.

Add Corn and Sausage:

Add the corn and sausage to the pot. Let them cook for another 10 minutes.

Add Seafood:

Add the shrimp and lobster tails to the pot. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, or until the shrimp are pink and opaque, and the lobster tails are cooked through. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning with more salt or Old Bay as needed.

Serve:

Drain the ingredients and transfer to a large serving platter or pour out onto a paper-lined table. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Serve with additional lemon wedges, melted butter, and a sprinkle of Old Bay seasoning.

HOMEMADE GNOCCHI IN BROWN BUTTER WITH MUSHROOMS, HAZELNUTS, AND SAGE

2½ cups (600 g) ricotta, drained overnight
¼ cup mascarpone
¾ cup grated parmesan
2 tbsp grated pecorino
Zest of 1 Meyer lemon (juice reserved)
¼ tsp nutmeg
Pinch white pepper
½ tsp kosher salt
About 3 cups semolina, for coating

Method

Mix ricotta, mascarpone, cheeses, lemon zest, nutmeg, pepper, and salt until smooth.

Spread half the semolina on a baking sheet. Scoop 1-inch balls of ricotta mixture, roll gently, and nestle into the semolina. Sprinkle more semolina on top. Refrigerate, uncovered, 18–24 hours (up to 48) to form a light shell.

Sauce + Topping

½ cup butter
1 small bunch sage (12 leaves)
1 lb mixed mushrooms, sliced
Splash dry white wine or vermouth
2 tbsp heavy cream
½ cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped
Crisped prosciutto or guanciale (optional)
Flaky salt + pepper

Method

Brown butter in a large skillet until nutty. Add sage leaves; fry until crisp, then remove.

Add mushrooms and cook until golden. Deglaze with wine, reduce, then stir in cream. Keep warm.

Cook gnudi in salted water for 3 minutes or until they float. I finished mine on the Blackstone for a crisp outter edge.

Transfer directly to the sauce.

Add hazelnuts and prosciutto, toss gently. Serve with fried sage and shaved parmesan.

Good things are worth tending.

Roasted Strawberries with Stracciatella, Basil Oil & Toasted Hazelnuts

Seared Lamb Chops with Mint Gremolata, Charred Spring Onions & Labneh

Charred Little Gems with Lemon-Tahini Dressing, Pickled Shallots (in Strawberry Vinegar) & Dukkah

Strawberry & Pink Peppercorn Pavlova with Rose Crème Fraîche

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Now. What did you feel? Not think. Because a menu, before it feeds anyone, is an emotional document. It’s a promise. It’s telling you what kind of evening you’re walking into before you’ve tasted a single thing.

A menu is not a list.

A list is neutral. A list says: here are some things.

A menu says: here is how tonight will feel.

I had a call with a psychic in the Cotswolds yesterday. How I ended up there is its own story, and I’ll save it, because it deserves more than a passing mention. But something (okay fine, a couple things) she said stayed with me in a way I can’t shake.

She told me my attention doesn’t move in a straight line. That it cuts, pivots, wanders. That from the outside, it looks scattered.

Yes, ma’am you are correct.

My days move between dinners and brand strategy, workshops and motherhood, making a home and opening it up. Recipes sit beside positioning statements. Menus live next to mood boards. It all bleeds together - and from the inside, it doesn’t feel chaotic. Like everything is coming from the same source and just choosing different forms on its way out.

I think about menus the way I think about brand strategy. Which is to say - obsessively, structurally, and with an unreasonable amount of feeling.

Enter: Strawberry Supper. Every dish on the menu centered around strawberries - roasted, raw, subtle, folded into things you wouldn’t expect. Four courses. One ingredient dovetailing throughout.

I wanted people reaching. Tearing bread. Grabbing seconds. Licking a thumb. I wanted the kind of meal where the distance between a person and their plate collapses entirely. No precious plating. No waiting for everyone to be served.

This is the part most people skip. They start with ingredients. They start with what’s in season, what looks impressive, what they saw someone else make. But a menu that starts with ingredients is just a grocery list with ambition. A menu that starts with a feeling has a point of view.

Here’s how I think about building a menu:

Start with a feeling.

Before I write a single dish, I ask: what do I want this table to feel like toward the end of the night? Loose and loud? Quiet and close? Are people leaning in or leaning back?

For the Strawberry Supper, the feeling was abandon, I suppose. Like spring/summer has arrived and we’re all busting out of our shells.

Choose a constraint.

A ingredient. A region. A color. A technique. Constraints aren’t limitations - they’re the thing that turns a collection of dishes into a narrative. Strawberries gave me a through-line, but the constraint also forced me into corners I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Strawberry vinegar in a mint gremolata over lamb. Pink peppercorn in a pavlova. The unexpected pairings came because of the boundary, not in spite of it.

This is true of every creative project I’ve ever worked on. The brief isn’t the cage. The brief is the architecture.

Build a curve.

A good menu has dynamics. The Strawberry Supper starts with something rich - roasted strawberries with stracciatella, torn basil, toasted hazelnuts. You drag bread through it and it says: relax, get in here.

Then the lamb is seared, charred, and bold. Everyone has to lean in. People are pulling chops off the table, community style.

The salad is a palate reset. Something bright and crunchy alongside all that richness. It earns its place not because it’s exciting on its own, but because of where it sits alongside everything else.

And then it softens with the pavlova. Pink peppercorn. Rose crème fraîche.

If every course hits at the same volume, you don’t have a menu. You have a singular tasting note. You wouldn’t dare stack four bangers in a row and close with a ballad!?

The last piece - and the one I think about most - is the art of the pairing.

Carmen paired the wine for this supper. And the thing I love about most about her is that she doesn’t pair wine to a recipe. She pairs wine to a feeling.

The Gamay she brought for the lamb was my favorite move of the night. Gamay gets filed away as simple, light, and unserious chilled red - the porch pounder. But she brought a Juliénas from Beaujolais with structure and depth and spice.

She said the thing that tied the whole evening into the bow: Gamay is the strawberry of wine. Everyone thinks they already know it. That's exactly when it surprises you.

That’s what a great pairing does - not just with wine, but with anything. It reintroduces you to something you thought you’d already figured out.

I used to feel like I needed to explain why menus and brands and workshops and motherhood all live in the same room in my head. Like the zigzag between them needed justifying.

But the zigzag is the method. It’s how I write a menu. It’s how I build a brand. It’s how I think about raising my child - start with feeling, choose a constraint, surround yourself with people who bring a new perspective to to table, think about the big picture, and cut the things that don’t earn their place.

The work is living in the tension of those things. Between feeling and structure. Between abundance and restraint.

The zigzag isn’t chaos. It’s a through-line that just doesn’t bother being straight.

The full Strawberry Supper menu - every recipe, Carmen’s wine picks, the whole evening - lives here.

Come sit with us,

Lauren

We put an offer in on a house this week. I’m writing this the night before we find out if we got it. Strange feeling - to hold a life in your head that may or may not be yours by morning.

Here’s the thing about me: I can always see it. I can make something from nothing. Walk me through a house with water-stained ceilings and a galley kitchen from 1987 and a weird little sunroom tacked onto the back, and I’ll already be three moves ahead. Knock this down. Open this up. Bump this out. Paint everything. Move the island. Better yet, find a vintage standalone one. The dining table goes here, under a pendant I haven’t found yet but will. The backyard dinner happens there. The morning light comes in through that window - you just have to take down the blinds to see it.

It’s a gift. It’s also so exhausting.

Because no one else in the room sees what I see. My husband is absurdly patient about it. My friends nod politely. But there’s a particular loneliness in it. I’m already living in the after. They’re squinting at the now.

This is true of houses. It’s also true of brands, and dinners, and seasons of life, and most things for me. I can picture it perfectly. The work is convincing everyone else - and sometimes myself - that the picture is worth chasing.

We won’t be in this next house forever. My husband works for the Titans, and the stadium will keep us tethered close to downtown. I want land eventually. But I don’t want to do bedtime alone every night while he sits in traffic. So: East. Where our whole lives already are. Our friends, our restaurants, the Friday evenings by the river, the breakfast taco spot, the natural wine shop, the bakery, the bar. I can already picture the walk to coffee. The walk to dinner. The .2 miles to my friend’s house.

So I made a vision board. A warm, yummy highlight reel of what I want this next season to feel like. Will we get the house? Who’s to say. But I’ll tell you what I’ve learned, after a lifetime of being the one who can see it: the vision always shows up before anyone else is on board. Before the offer is accepted. Before the walls come down. You carry it alone for a while. That’s just the deal.

In the meantime, here’s the vibe.

I can’t stop thinking about this soft, buttery golden moss tone for cabinets. Someone please tell me if this is a terrible idea.

(on my object wish list . estelle pendant)

.. and more here :

Cross your fingers and toes for us.

Xx

Lauren

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I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

It’s a simple shape. Two pieces of wood, cut at angles that seem like they shouldn’t work, pressed together without glue or nails. The tension of the fit is what holds it. Pull in any direction and it only gets stronger.

The name came for my passion project came quickly. Faster than anything I’ve ever named.

My husband pulled up a thesaurus. I said something about wanting to explore the intersection of design and food, how those two things fit together.

And there it was.

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The last five years haven’t felt clean or linear or particularly on-brand. They felt like unraveling. My body stopped behaving in ways I understood. My relationship to food became fractured in ways I didn’t have language for. My favorite morning foods made me gag. My face changed. My nervous system was loud in the middle of the night. I was up at 3am, panicky, my cortisol spiking in the dark, my body sounding an alarm and sending signals I didn’t know how to interpret.

I won’t go into the details of what those years held. Most of it is mine to keep. There was a surgery in there somewhere. It saved my fertility but rerouted the next several years of my life toward IVF, toward a kind of strength I hadn’t anticipated needing.

I learned the hard way that the body doesn’t lie. That when something is unresolved, it will persistently find a way to make itself known - through the gut, through inflammation, through the thing you used to love that now turns your stomach.

I learned that I couldn’t shortcut or perform my way through, that the body keeps an honest account. If something is unresolved, it will find a place to live. It will wait as long as it needs to.

So I started paying attention. I chose to look toward the long, unglamorous, deeply unsexy work. Toward what steadied me. Toward what agitated me and why. Toward what felt nourishing and what didn’t. Toward the patterns I had ignored.

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I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

Explore the Studio / Join the Workshop / Come to the Table

For over a year I've been writing essays and sending them out into the world without asking much in return. An open door. Come if you want. No reservation required.

That still feels right, mostly. But I’ve been thinking about what it means to host well. Knowing who’s at the table. Knowing what you’re serving and why.

At heart, I am a collector. I build a playlist for each month. I create a monthly pinterest board. In my ShopMy I keep a monthly list of what I’m coveting and curating. It has always been for me - little private rituals - but I thought it might be interesting to put them out into the world. May they add a little joy and inspiration to someone.

So, every other week, you’ll get this. A note from me that’s lighter, a little more immediate. What I’m cooking, what I’m into, what I’m up to in Nashville, and what’s been catching my attention lately.

On the alternating weeks, I’ll send the longer essays. Those will live behind a subscription for anyone who wants to go further.

The first Open Table lands right now. The Long Table begins 4.2. Paid subscriptions are $8/month or $80/year.

On Repeat:

On My Radar: What I am collecting and coveting.

On My Mind: What I’m inspired by right now.

On the Table: We've been moving at warp speed. This week I just want to cook something I already know how to make. Brûléed grapefruit toasts, grilled chicken thighs with an easy marinade, and my fool proof gluten free flatbread dough. I’m also sitting down with someone who is starting an Italian wine club in Nashville, so I have my Italian menu on the brain.

On the Docket:

There’s an “Energy Exchange” at Brooklyn Heights Garden tonight from 5-7. They are a nonprofit urban farm in North Nashville growing food, connection & community and we’re in talks about doing a Dovetail dinner there this spring.

Tin Pan South songwriters festival is happening all over town week.

Henrietta Red is hosting a beginner-friendly American Mahjong class on April 8th.

Spread Market came out with a new menu and I will be running to get the hatch chile cheddar sourdough.

Slip Ceramics is doing pottery classes.

Farm Fridays and Fridays by the River are back next week!

Time to emerge from hibernation, folks.

Come sit with us.

-Lauren

I’m a brand strategist and creative director based in Nashville. Dovetail Together is my Substack — a place for essays on food, gatherings, design, the art of living well - and how it all dovetails together.

Explore the Studio / Join the Workshop / Come to the Table

Hi. It’s been a minute. Let me start by saying that I am extraordinarily sentimental at this present moment in time.

Last night I saw a quote that said “I am a museum of everything I have loved.”

The idea that who I am - structurally, today - is a product of all that I’ve ever witnessed, all the people I’ve loved, all the meals shared, all the tastes and places and moments that have moved through me. That they didn’t just pass through. That somehow, without my knowing exactly when or how, they became load-bearing.

Structurally they are inside me, somehow holding me up.

We are selling our house. The one with the backyard that shares a property line of one of the oldest homesteads in Nashville, whose story dates back to a land grant issued in 1784, before Tennessee was a state. It was once part of a 430-acre working plantation (eep, melty face).

Read more

I posted a long (really long) introduction you can read here, if you want to know the inner workings of my soul.

The other night at a dinner the subject of volume come up.

How loud someone gets. Who fills the room. Who disappears into it.

A friend’s new boyfriend was there, still learning the group’s dynamics. When he turned to me - curious, maybe, about where I fit - I said, without thinking, “I’m loud if you’re paying attention.”

Which actually kind of shocked me. It came out of nowhere and it landed harder than I expected. That moment when you realize it’s true before you’ve fully decided you meant it.

Volume gets misunderstood. We treat it like a personality flaw or a virtue depending on the room. Dial it down. Speak up. Too much. Too little. Behave accordingly.

We talk about it like a setting that’s either too high or too low. As if presence only exists on a single dial.

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When my husband first started cooking for me, he barely seasoned the food.

He talked a lot about letting the natural flavors shine. Let the ingredients be themselves. Don’t interfere too much. Trust what’s already there. As if restraint was a virtue.

There was a kind of quiet confidence in it. A belief that if you listen closely enough, the food will speak for itself.

Meanwhile, I’m over here like:

More salt.

More spice.

More garlic, please.

I want food that gets turned up a notch. I want food that makes a point. Food that announces itself. Food you remember.

And the first time he cooked for me I wondered if our palettes were too different to coexist.

We joke about it now, but it’s a real difference between us. Not just in cooking, but in how we move through the world.

I’ve realized we’re not opposites - we’re just working from different assumptions about the world.

He assumes people are listening. I assume they’re not.

He believes subtlety invites attention. I believe clarity does.

He waits for people to come to him. I make sure they know where to find me.

And honestly? We’re both right.

But whispering only works if someone’s already leaning in. If they’re already tuned to your frequency. If they’ve already decided you’re worth the effort of listening.

Not everyone gets that luxury.

Some of us have learned that if you want to be heard, you have to make sure there’s something to hear. You season until it’s undeniable. You turn up the volume until the message lands.

Some people trust the room to come to them. Some of us build the flavor so you can’t miss it.

The trick isn’t picking one approach and sticking to it. It’s knowing which room you’re in. And deciding whether you want to meet it where it is, or make it meet you.

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That’s the thing about volume - it’s about calibration. Knowing when to let something stay soft. Knowing when to push it until it hits. Knowing who’s listening and who isn’t.

I’m not loud all the time. I’m specific. I’m intentional. I turn it up when something matters. When the moment calls for it. When subtlety would feel like a lie.

In food. In work. In conversation. In love.

I’m not interested in being palatable.

I’d rather be too much flavor than not enough. I’d rather be too loud than too easily ignored.

And maybe the question isn’t whether you’re too loud or too quiet. Maybe it’s whether you’re seasoned enough for the life you’re trying to live.

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I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my work, because from the outside it probably looks scattered. A family. A brand studio. A workshop. A food project. Dinners. Essays. A life that is always orbiting a table somewhere.

But it’s not separate in my mind.

It’s one philosophy expressed through different mediums.

Which brings me to Dovetail.

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Dovetail started as a series of menus that featured a handful of things I always have on hand that do exactly what I want them to do: add volume. Depth. Punch. The kind of flavor you can’t ignore.

They’re not recipes so much as amplifiers.

I realized recently that this is also how I approach life. Volume is rarely about pushing harder. It’s about choosing the right points of emphasis.

THE DOVETAILS

Garlic Confit

Preserved Lemons

Labneh

Sourdough

Foraging and Flowers

Kitchen Sink Pesto

They’re my secret weapons that show up in all of my menus - though calling them “secret” feels generous since I use them constantly and loudly.

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I know I can look like I’m doing a lot at once.

But it all comes from the same place. A refusal to live quietly inside my own life. Not loud for the sake of it, just fully flavored.

The dinner the other night made me realize I’ve been building toward a single question without calling it like it is:

What does it look like to live at your true volume?

Not the one that keeps everyone comfortable.

Not the one that avoids criticism.

The one that feels unmistakably yours.

Maybe that’s what I’m actually inviting people into.

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If any of this resonates, you know where to find me.

Explore the Studio

Join the Workshop

Come to the Table

We just got hit upside the head by a major winter storm. When I went to the natural market to stock up - I found the biggest leeks I’ve ever seen in my life. Thick as my wrist

.So naturally, I canceled whatever dinner plan I had, spent thirteen dollars on two leeks without blinking, and built an entire gourmet menu around them - on a Tuesday.

That’s honestly the best summary of me I can give you.

I’m Lauren,

I never wrote an introduction because I don’t like talking about myself and I’ve never trusted neat summaries to tell the truth anyway. I don’t experience my life in straight lines. Things come to me sideways. Through sensation and repetition.

I kept waiting for the day when I could distill myself into one clean sentence. You know, the kind people nod at and say, “Oh, that makes sense.”

That day never came.

What did show up were patterns. The same ones, over and over again. Food. Design. Gathering. Atmosphere. The quiet power of making people feel known.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where water and weather teach you how to wait. Cold lakes, dark oceans, long stretches of gray. I think that’s where I learned to trust timing over force, to let things unfold instead of muscling them into place.

I’ve been in the South for twenty years now, and it taught me something different. Warmth as a form of intelligence. Hospitality as attunement. How to let beauty be generous and a little unruly and still feel grounded.

Somewhere between those two places, I stopped second-guessing myself so much.

I learned that discernment gets mislabeled as intensity when a woman trusts her own read of things. But I know quickly when something is off. Not because I’m sharp for sport, but because my gut usually knows before my brain catches up. I’ve learned to trust that read, even when it’s inconvenient.

I tend to trust things I can feel. Good cashmere sweaters. Sun on skin. Crusty baguettes. Good olive oil. Splitting a bottle. The sound of it opening. Weathered marble. The sizzle of heat meeting oil. A meal that someone clearly cared about making.

I trust the kind of beauty that doesn’t ask for attention and the kind of intelligence that doesn’t need to prove itself.

That’s orientation shapes everything. The way I host. The way I work. The way I mother. The way I move through my days.

I follow what catches my attention. I trust my read. I let beauty and nourishment lead, and I build everything else around them - because what I care about most is legacy. Not just brand legacy - but human legacy. How spaces shape nervous systems. How tables teach children what beauty feels like. What rituals teach us without us even realizing it.

I’m a brand strategist by trade, but that’s never felt like the whole truth.

The work is less about clever positioning and more about listening. It’s pattern recognition, an understanding of what makes people lean in or pull away, and a sensitivity to when something is trying too hard. Most brands don’t need to be louder. They need to be clearer, more honest, and more themselves.

I was doing this work before I had words for it. Hosting people. Watching how they moved through a space. Paying attention to what made them stay longer than they planned to.

Food became the thing that connected it all.

Cooking taught me pacing. Patience. Restraint. How to trust the process. How to read when something's ready instead of forcing it. It taught me that nourishment isn’t transactional. You can’t shortcut it or fake care because people feel the difference immediately.

At some point, the lines blurred. Meetings turned into meals, clients became guests, work became embodied, and breakthroughs happened over wine. The table became my most honest workspace.

Motherhood deepened my ambition instead of softening it. I am no longer building for applause, but so that my child grows up breathing in beauty and clarity and courage as baseline air.

The question is no longer what can I build - it's what's actually worth building? What matters? What lasts? What feels good to return to?

I care deeply about the world he’s inheriting. I want him to notice small things. To understand that attention is one of the most generous things you can offer another person. I want him to grow up around tables where real conversations happen and people actually listen to each other. I think letting him see me work, create, and mess up is teaching him more than pretending I have it all figured out ever could. I want to raise someone who understands that nourishment - emotional, physical, creative - isn't optional, it's essential.

Dovetail is where all of this lives. Design and food and experiences that actually nourish people. Where beauty does something. Where the point isn't aesthetics, it's substance.

I'm building a family and a way of working that I hope feel like places people want to come back to. Where attention is paid, meals and conversations matter, and creation happens daily - not for display - but because it’s how I make sense of the world.

This Substack lives in that in-between space where work and life stop pretending they’re separate, where making and meaning inform one another, and where ambition is held in conversation with appetite. It’s where I write without trying to package myself, follow curiosity wherever it leads, and let food, ritual, and creative work speak to each other naturally, without hierarchy.

You’ll find recipes here, but they’re really about rhythm. You’ll find brand thinking, but it’s filtered through lived experience. You’ll find reflections that come from someone who cares deeply about beauty, but even more about the integrity of it.

I’m here to pay attention, to ask better questions, and to make things that feel nourishing in a world that often asks us to consume without tasting.

This is the introduction I never wrote because I was too busy evolving. If you’re here, you probably are too.

I hope you sit with us.

Cheers,

Lauren

Here’s the full menu the leeks brought out in me:

Charred Radicchio & Winter Citrus Salad with Shaved Fennel, Toasted Pistachio, and a Warm Shallot Vinaigrette

White Wine–Braised Leeks with Lemon Zest and Olive Oil

Gorgonzola Truffle Cream Sauce with Mushrooms

Cast-Iron Steak with Thyme, Black Pepper, and Brown Butter

Come back next week for the recipes (if Nashville ever get power back and I can get my film developed, which is lower on the totem pole than being home, showering, and doing laundry).

(Photos from this summer by because I am trying to remember what it felt like to be warm)

PS. There’s that saying about being careful what you wish for because you might actually get it, and I think about that a lot. I’m someone who manifests, who dreams out loud, who schemes and plans and builds toward things I can barely articulate yet. But right now? I have a life that sometimes feels almost too good to be real.

A house I love with a husband I’m genuinely obsessed with. A one-year-old son who’s curious and stoic and makes me want to be better. A golden retriever we got two days before the world shut down, who is... a work in progress, let’s say. A business I built from scratch that lets me work with people who inspire me. Passions and projects that keep me up at night in the best way. A group of women in my life who are so smart and cool and hot and successful that I sometimes can’t believe they all chose me. Multiple friend groups somehow converged last year and now everyone I love is friends with each other, which feels like a tiny miracle.

I’m telling you this because gratitude matters. And because I think it’s important to say out loud when things are good - not perfect, not without hard days or doubt or the occasional existential spiral - but good. Really, really good.

In case you’re still reading this.. I wrote a list of fun facts after more than one glass of wine and will not be editing it for the appeal of the masses.

I'm an optimist who believes in finding the bright side.

I have excellent instincts and questionable follow-through on small tasks.

I’m serious about things but don’t take myself seriously.

I’ve never met a cheese plate I didn’t love.

I talk with my hands (a lot).

I think the term “guilty pleasure” is nonsense - if it makes you happy, just own it.

While we are on the subject of guilty pleasures, my martini order is - a very dry gin (Fords) martini, stirred, extra cold, with a twist.

I’m obsessed with how light changes throughout the day and will move around the house to follow it.

I will always choose cooking over fire outside instead of using an oven when given the option.

I'm deeply maternal and deeply ambitious, and I don't think those things are contradictory.

My most-played record is Willie Nelson’s And Then I Wrote from 1962 and I will not elaborate.

I think most things would be better if we just slowed down and added butter.

I decided my 30's would be about being a beginner again, so I learned to fly fish and ride horses as an adult - turns out being bad at something new is its own kind of freedom.

I think about place constantly and am always half-designing imaginary spaces in my head. Hence this and this.

I love awe but dislike fluff. The second something feels generic or try-hard - I tend to politely disengage.

I think the sound of someone laughing in another room is one of the best sounds in the world.

My son’s curls are starting to show up and I’m irrationally emotional about it - like he’s teaching me to love the texture I spent decades trying to tame.

My husband is a Level 2 Sommelier who got me completely hooked on wine — the varietal, the place, the altitude, the culture, all of it. Then he developed acid reflux and now will rarely imbibe with me, which is a betrayal I’m still processing.

I can smell mold in your home from across the room. My sense of smell is borderline supernatural, which is great for said wine tasting and deeply unfortunate at parties.

I’ve started more personal projects than I’ve finished, and I’m weirdly proud of that.

I think the word “moist” is fine and people are being dramatic.

I believe in over-tipping people who are kind, even if the service was just okay.

I’ve owned my dream car - an old Range Rover - and am finally selling it because of “adulthood.”

I eat very little meat myself but will happily cook it beautifully for people I love.

However, I love pepperoni pizza.

I think most meetings could’ve been a voice memo.

I always carry a little tin of good salt in my purse.

My Spotify library is deeply curated and includes old jazz, weird indie, 90’s country, good hip hop, and Cuban classics.

I think the term “girl boss” should be retired immediately.

If I could teleport right now, it would be to Jackson Hole before the influencer era, watching the sun drop behind the Tetons.

My son was born on New Year's Eve, which feels appropriate for someone who's always thinking about new beginnings (and fireworks).

I am wildly loyal once I am in.

I will overthink a text and underthink a major life decision.

Subsequently, I treat “we’ll figure it out” as a legitimate plan.

I love football. And basketball. Please do not make me watch golf or baseball, I’m busy.

I can tell you’re lying to me, but I’ll let you finish your story.

I could watch a river move for hours and never get bored.

I’m deeply interested in how nervous systems show up in work, parenting, and hospitality.

Alexandra Stoddard is my spirit animal.

I’m convinced most problems can be solved by getting outside or lighting something on fire.

I don’t like being told what to do, but I love learning from people I respect.

I always have a packed and ready-to-go picnic basket in my car - in case of spontaneity.

I’m deeply skeptical of people who don’t like dogs or cheese.

I have strong opinions about music volume and lighting, and they are usually correct.

I am extremely aware of vibes and selectively unaware of logistics, which is one of the reasons my marriage works well.

I’m big on TBM and The Class.

I've unfollowed people for using the wrong "your" but stayed friends with them in real life because I have boundaries.

I think the act of feeding people is one of the most generous things you can do.

I’m a 7 with an 8 wing on the enneagram.

I’ve never regretted staying up late for a good conversation.

I’ve bought vintage platters I’ll probably never use just because they were beautiful and someone’s grandmother probably loved them.

I’m not trying to impress anyone, but I am trying to create moments people remember.

I think people who say "I don't really care about food" are lying or need therapy.

I’m funnier in person than I am on paper (or so I’m told).

Xx

“We’re in for a mild winter but a volatile spring,” he said with a tone of warning in his voice. I tried to hide the thrill in mine when I responded.

I’ve always had a thing about storms.

Not in a reckless way. In a reverent one. I love the moment right before they arrive, when the air thickens and the light turns strange. When you can feel it in your chest before you see it in the sky. When everything goes eerily quiet.

Everything suspends.

And then - release.

I’m the one who stays on the porch while everyone else is hauling in furniture. Watching the pressure build. Watching the sky change. There is something deeply grounding about witnessing that much power. A reminder that not everything is meant to be controlled.

But there's a difference between witnessing and understanding. Between watching something move and knowing how to move with it.

My husband and I slept through the Nashville tornado in 2020.

We lived in East Nashville near the path it tore through. When I woke up, my phone was vibrating off the nightstand - hundreds of messages, asking if we were okay. A mile north, houses had been peeled open like fruit. Entire lives exposed to the sky.

And we slept through it.

I think about that a lot. How something so powerful could move through a place I loved while I remained completely unaware. How staying asleep can feel safer than fully reckoning with what’s unfolding around us.

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For a while now, I’ve felt it building.

That pre-storm thickness. That charge in the air. Not urgency exactly, but accumulation. Ideas stacking quietly. Questions circling back. A sense that something has been forming beneath the surface, gathering force.

And the pressure has reached its point.

For years, people have come to me when something looks right but doesn’t feel right. When the brand is polished and profitable and still quietly wrong. When the work is impressive and oddly exhausting. Brands that looked beautiful but felt hollow. Founders who could execute flawlessly but couldn’t name what they actually stood for.

I’ve learned to recognize that moment immediately. It’s never a lack of talent. It’s never a lack of effort. It’s almost always a lack of orientation.

At some point, I stopped thinking about brands as assets to be optimized and started seeing them as living systems. Shaped by forces that exist whether we acknowledge them or not.

Soil. Fire. Air. Water.

Roots. Presence. Voice. Impact.

These aren’t metaphors I invented - they’re forces I kept running into, again and again. Neglect one, and the whole thing wobbles.

Every time I tried to teach positioning or messaging or visual identity the conventional way - through frameworks and cerebral understanding - something essential was missing. The feeling of it.

I kept noticing what I returned to. Brand as something nourishing. Strategy as something you experience in your body, not just map out on paper.

Once I started working this way, I couldn’t go back.

The Elements of Brand emerged not because I decided to create it, but because it insisted on being created. It’s what happens when you stop trying to contain the creative pressure and instead make space for it to move.

The Elements of Brand is a two-day, in-person workshop designed to clarify your brand from the inside out.

We work through four elements. Each one addresses a core part of brand strategy and brings it into the physical world.

Soil — Strategy & Foundation

We begin at the root. A guided wine tasting paired with strategic work to define what your brand is built on. Values, positioning, point of view. You leave with a grounded foundation that informs every decision moving forward.

Fire — Visual Identity & Presence

Fire brings clarity. Through a shared meal and time around open flame, we explore how instinct, emotion, and signal shape visual identity. This is where your brand’s look and feel begin to align with its energy.

Air — Storytelling & Messaging

Air clears the noise. Through breathwork and storywork designed to clear noise and refine your voice. You leave with messaging that feels natural, precise, and unmistakably yours.

Water — Audience & Influence

Water is how your work finds its people. Through a reflective tea ritual, we explore connection, resonance, and reach. We clarify how your brand moves into community and the ripple it’s meant to create.

This is brand strategy taught through soil and fire and air and water. Through wine and breath and open flame. Through your body, not just your brain. This is what happens when strategy stops being something you understand and becomes something you experience.

I’ve learned this about storms, creative or otherwise.

You can witness their power with reverence and awe - but at some point, you have to learn how to orient yourself inside them. How to move with the forces shaping your work instead of just watching them gather.

You can prepare, brace, hope they might drift past.

You can stay asleep.

Or you can step into it.

That’s what this workshop is for.

The Elements of Brand arrives in Nashville this spring.

April 23–24, in an intimate, eight-person setting.

Details and applications are open at elementsofbrand.com.

Your values inform your visuals.
Your visuals carry your voice.
Your voice flows to your people.
Your people nourish your foundation.

Not in a judgmental way, in an “I’m tired way.”

I have less tolerance for pretense or performance. I can’t engage with people who speak fluently about calm, clarity, leadership, and presence while their bodies tell another story entirely. It’s not offensive, it’s just exhausting.

(Horse at Bloomsbury Farms, by Madi Flournoy Henderson)

A horse will ruin you for that.

Horses are inconvenient that way. They don’t play along. They don’t respond to who you say you are. They respond to what’s actually happening in your body - your breath, your heartbeat, your steadiness. You can’t muscle your way through and you can’t charm your way out. A horse doesn’t need to touch you to know when you’re off. Your heart rate and nervous system announces itself long before your hands do.

If you’re steady, they move with you.

If you’re not, they won’t.

That’s why I started riding in the first place. I was trying to regulate a severely dysregulated nervous system and wanted a cheat-proof mirror.

And that kind of honesty is hard to come by. And once I felt it, I started noticing how much of my life used to run on tolerance. Tolerance for things that felt slightly off. Tolerance for versions of connection that asked me to override myself just to keep things smooth.

Maybe it’s getting older. Maybe it’s becoming a mother. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have the energy anymore to pretend something feels good when it doesn’t.

I’m drawn to people who are settled. People who don’t need to convince anyone of anything or rush to fill silence. Who don’t posture or perform their certainty and confidence. People who listen more than they speak. People who don’t need agreement to feel secure.

Which brings me, somehow, to olive oil. Spoiler alert, it always ties back to food.

If you know me at all, you know that I’m curious. And when I say curious, I mean I will happily follow a rabbit hole until it turns feral. Cut to: me learning about the olive oil mafia at 2am.

Excuse the “DUN DUN DUN” tone, but I’m not being dramatic. We’re talking the actual mafia.

Olive oil is one of those things we trust without question. It lives on the counter in all of our homes. It gets poured generously. It’s associated with longevity and care. Ancient. Honest. Safe.

Except it isn’t.

Most of what’s sold as extra virgin olive oil isn’t extra or virgin at all. Depending on the study, anywhere from 60-90% of olive oil on American shelves is adulterated or mislabeled - made from damaged or overripe olives, heated, refined, deodorized - then bottled anyway. Oils blended with cheap imports from North Africa, South America, or elsewhere, then relabeled and priced as premium Italian extra virgin.

This isn’t corner-cutting. It’s organized crime.

The agromafia - actual crime families - have been systematically infiltrating the olive oil trade for decades. They flood the market with counterfeit “extra virgin” so cheap that legitimate producers can’t compete. Small farmers who won’t cooperate get threatened. Orchards burnt. Inspectors get paid off or scared away.

In 2008, Italian authorities launched “Operation Golden Oil” and seized 85 oil mills. They arrested 23 people who had been mixing chlorophyll (CHLOROPHYLL?!) with cheap seed oils and selling it as extra virgin. Over 400 Italian police officers raided manufacturing plants and arrested 60 people for adding beta-carotene to low-grade oil and passing it off as premium.

There was even a 60 Minutes episode that shed some primetime light on the issue.

And we - educated, careful people who read labels and shop at nice grocery stores - we buy it. We drizzle it on salads. We cook with it. We give it as gifts.

The part that bothers me isn’t the fraud. It’s how well it works.

Because most people don’t know what real olive oil is supposed to taste like. They don’t know it should bite. That it should be grassy and bitter and peppery enough to catch in the throat. That it should leave a sensation behind.

Real olive oil is fragile. It oxidizes. It hates light and heat. It doesn’t tolerate shortcuts. It costs more because it asks for more - more attention, more care, more time. And instead of honoring that, the industry learned how to smooth it out. Neutralize it. Remove the burn. Sell the feeling of authenticity instead of the thing itself.

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We, as a culture, have gotten very good at the performance of honesty. We’ve perfected the aesthetic of alignment. We’ve become accustomed to choosing versions of people, products, and lives that look right enough on the surface. Brands that sound meaningful but say nothing. People who speak fluently about values they don’t live. Lives arranged to appear grounded while everything underneath is buzzing and tight and unsustainable.

I’m not above this. I’ve done it too. It’s easier to smooth out the edges than to keep the parts that make us harder to digest.

But the body always knows.

A horse knows.

Your nervous system knows.

Your gut knows what’s real long before your mind catches up.

Since I started riding, I’ve become less interested in convincing anyone of anything. I don’t want to sell calm, I want to feel it. I don’t want to perform confidence, I want to trust my own steadiness.

Horses don’t punish you for being off. They just stop responding until you come back into yourself.

Real extra virgin olive oil doesn’t try to be smooth or agreeable. Exposed to light, heat, and time, it either holds its integrity or it doesn’t.

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How many of us have been so dysregulated for so long that we don’t actually know what steady feels like anymore? We’ve gotten so used to running on adrenaline and cortisol and the manufactured performance of having it together that actual calm would feel foreign. Wrong, even. Too quiet. Too still. Not productive enough.

We’ve been sold a counterfeit version of ourselves for so long that the real thing - the regulated, grounded version - would probably make us uncomfortable.

The shock and awe of the fraud isn’t just that it’s fake. The fraud is that we’ve forgotten what real tastes like.

Everyone is talking about the Year of the Horse - what it means and what it promises. Strength. Momentum. Forward motion. A return to power.

But horses only care about steadiness and coherence.

I suppose that’s the version of the ‘Year of the Horse’ I’m choosing to pay attention to. Not the year of becoming louder or more impressive or more productive. Not the year of proving anything. But the year of being steady enough to be honest. Because that’s the common thread, isn’t it? Horses. Olive oil. Nervous systems. They all tell the truth the same way. Under pressure. Under light. Over time.

The counterfeit versions can look convincing for a while. But eventually, they flatten or go quiet or disappear.

The real thing can handle the light.

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And if all of this has you side-eyeing the bottle on your counter (as you should), you can run a little test for the bottle in your pantry.

Pour a small amount of your “extra virgin” olive oil into a bowl, cover it, and place it in the refrigerator for a day or two. Real olive oil often turns cloudy or semi-solid in the cold. If it stays perfectly clear, that’s worth paying attention to. Real olive oil reacts to the cold. Counterfeits are designed not to.

But for those of us with lives, who can’t perform experiments on every $15 bottle of potentially mafia-plagued olive oil… Let’s start with the brands that made the fraud list, that we will no longer be buying (say it with me)… No more Colavita. No more Bertolli. No more Whole Foods. No to Berio. No to Filippo.

When you are examining labels, look for oils that clearly state where the olives were grown - not just where the bottle was filled. Favor recent harvest dates - extra virgin olive oil is alive and fragile; after about 12 to 18 months, it begins to lose the very qualities that make it worth buying in the first place. Be wary of vague language like “packed in Italy” or “made in Italy.” Those phrases often describe the bottling location, not the origin of the olives themselves.

But also — and this matters more — you can trust your senses.

If it tastes flat, it probably is.

If it feels forced, it probably is.

If it requires a lot of convincing, it probably isn’t the real thing.

And because someone will ask: I have Flamingo Estate olive oil on subscription. It shows up once a month, peppery and alive, and reminds me — every single time — what the real thing tastes like.

Now, naturally, the only reasonable response to uncovering a global olive oil conspiracy is to make a very good cake.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

1 cup olive oil (preferably a soft and buttery Ligurian olive oil)

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, plus 2 tbsp for sprinkling the top

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup lemon juice

zest from 3 lemons

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cup whole milk

granulated or powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Mix 1 cup olive oil, 3 large eggs, 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 cup lemon juice, zest from 3 lemons, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 cups all-purpose flour, and 1 1/4 cups whole milk.

Preheat your oven to 350F and prep a 9” springform pan by greasing the bottom and sides, then lining the bottom with parchment paper and wrapping the outside with foil. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together olive oil, eggs, and sugar. Add vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice, whisking briefly to blend. Sift salt, baking powder, baking soda, and flour together. Gradually add these dry ingredients to the wet mixture in batches, alternating with milk. Mix gently until no dry flour streaks remain.

Pour the batter into the springform pan and sprinkle 2 tbsp of granulated sugar evenly on top. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until the cake is risen and slightly golden. Let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then gently remove it and let it cool fully on a baking rack. Once cool, you can optionally dust the top with granulated or powdered sugar.

I stayed up until midnight last night writing a letter to my son on his first birthday.

The house was quiet in that way it only ever is on New Year’s Eve, when everyone is counting down somewhere else. Suspended in time. I sat at the kitchen table trying to remember everything in detail. I wanted to capture his first year in words worth keeping. Things I need him to know someday. Things that might help him understand his own impact on me.

Fireworks cracked open in the sky. The same sound that marked his arrival exactly one year ago. But this time, he was asleep down the hall. Safe. Breathing steady. Mine.

The first fireworks came while I was in a hospital bed without him in my arms. He was in the NICU, just for a few days, but long enough to understand how strange it feels when the world is celebrating and you are just trying to remember to breathe. How the sound felt too big for the room I was in. Too joyful for the moment. I remember deciding that if this was how his life began, I would spend the rest of it making sure he was met with color and wonder. That once we were on the other side of that beginning, I would never let a year turn quietly for him.

What I didn’t know then was how much would change between one set of fireworks and the next.

We kept a baby book. I wrote down dates. A list of milestones meant to capture a life. And already, it feels thin and insufficient compared to the lived experience of it all.

We love to mark firsts. We name them. Celebrate them. Treat them like the moment everything clicks into place. Track them like achievements. First steps. First words. First day of school. First job. First home. We talk about them like they’re the moments that matter most, as if their value lives in the instant they happen. We treat them like proof of progress, as if their value lives in the moment they happen.

But real firsts are rarely clean or singular.

Real firsts crack you open. They arrive tangled with fear and awe. They don’t always announce themselves with fanfare, and they don’t always feel important while they’re happening. You often only understand them later, when you’re standing in a quiet kitchen after the house is quiet, trying to name what shifted.

We mark beginnings like they’re the whole story. But most meaningful things don’t happen in a single moment. They happen in the attention we bring to small things over time. In devotion that doesn’t timestamp neatly. In the slow work of becoming that unfolds between all those firsts we’re so eager to celebrate.

What I want to remember isn’t the date he crawled or the hour he took his first steps. I want to remember the trying. The patience. The micro-movements. The slow accumulation of strength that didn’t announce itself as a milestone at all.

Becoming his mother didn’t arrive in a single moment either. It unfolded. In finding myself changed in ways I didn’t immediately recognize. It happened in fragments. In nights that blurred together. In doing the same small things over and over until they started feeling like devotion.

None of that happened on a single day I can circle on a calendar.

When midnight struck last night and the fireworks started again, I let out a good, overdue cry. One year behind us. A new year opening with a one-year-old asleep down the hall.

The same sound in the sky.

An entirely different life underneath it.

Because this year didn’t change me in moments I could point to cleanly. It changed me through repetition. In the trying and re-trying. In the way uncertainty slowly became familiarity. In the way effort softened into instinct.

This New Year, I’m wishing for less fixation on beginnings and more trust in what builds slowly. Less emphasis on the moment something starts, and more reverence for what grows because we keep showing up.

The fireworks will come every year. But it’s everything in between that matters.

Here’s to firsts.
And to everything that comes after.

Happy New Year.

(Photo by THE )

I get really sentimental at the end of the year.

Because every year, I choose a word. Not as a resolution, not to discipline myself or manufacture growth - but as an invitation.

Some years the word has been grounded.

Some years it has been bold.

This year I chose whimsy.

And I failed.

Not because whimsy didn’t show up - but because it showed up wrong. Or I did. I’m still sorting it out.

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Expectation is a hilarious and dangerous thing. I had a baby on New Year’s Eve and I had this vision of a year of ease and enchantment. I imagined myself drifting into the season like steam off a pot. Untethered and warm.

But whimsy, I’ve learned, has a sense of humor.

Instead of dissolving, my mind ignited. It didn’t soften into the fog people warned me about. It sharpened. Clarified. In a wild, crackling, holy shit where is this coming from kind of way. An intense clarity that felt almost supernatural. Ideas arriving too fast to hold. A relentless engine working overtime.

This was not the floaty, slow-motion whimsy I ordered.

I’d picked the wrong word, clearly.

It took months before I realized the flaw in my thinking: I had confused whimsy with ease. I thought whimsy needed space, slack, softness. I’d been waiting for an atmosphere I didn’t have.

I’d been measuring whimsy by the wrong metric.

(Flower Installation by Abigail Jane Design)

It hit me one afternoon with the force of something obvious and overdue. This little jolt.

For years, Elements lived in my studio drawers and client notes. A framework I used 1:1, almost instinctively.

Soil for foundation.

Fire for identity.

Air for voice.

Water for impact.

It was how I built brands, how I helped people make sense of their work and their desires.

I never imagined it as an experience.

Which now feels absurd. Why did it take me so long to see it?

All of my creative instincts were reaching toward the same center.

The way food, story, design, hospitality, sensory experience, and strategy weren’t separate, but one long, winding conversation I’d been having for years.

Elements became a place where all of my worlds overlapped. Food as metaphor, story as connective tissue, design as meaning-making, ritual as strategy, sensory experience as brand foundation.

That was whimsy.

Not the feather-light whimsy I thought I was seeking - but the kind born from alignment. In the electric moment when the dots finally connect. The kind that feels like someone turned on the lights inside your own mind.

Once I saw it, I started recognizing its pattern everywhere.

Whimsy wasn’t trying to soften me. It was trying to wake me up. It was threading its way into the edges of my days, showing up in the way my brain insisted on staying deliciously alive even when I was exhausted.

I thought whimsy meant floating through the year untethered and delighted.

But whimsy is aliveness.

Motherhood didn’t shrink my creativity - it cracked it open. It rearranged the ingredients. It gave me a new heat source. My work got sharper. My instincts got louder. My thinking got faster. It isn’t graceful, but it is real.

The word was right all along. I just had to learn its language.

(Workshop photos by Jess Steddom)

So, in my sentimental state, I’m closing out the year draping garland over every unoccupied surface. I’m hanging paper stars anywhere they’ll stick, and perfuming the whole place with oranges and cloves. And then I’m going to throw my baby a New Year’s Eve first birthday party. And it’s all going to be whimsical, damnit.

Not because I found the ease I was looking for this year, but because I found something better.

I found proof that intensity and magic aren’t opposites. That my brain can be both relentless and playful. Proof that motherhood didn’t dilute me — it rewired me. Proof that whimsy isn’t fragile. It’s resilient. It adapts. It survives you changing.

Maybe the word doesn’t just guide the year. Maybe the year teaches you what the word actually means.

It means still believing in magic, and metaphor, and the quiet audacity of making beautiful things while your whole world melts and reshapes around you.

So protect your whimsy. Water your delusion. Feed the little fantasies, the curious thoughts, the wild hunches.

It’s not denial - it’s resistance. The world can push us toward being tired and predictable. Toward shrinking.

Whimsy is the refusal. The soft rebellion of staying playful and a little bit feral even when everything tells you to shut that part of yourself down.

Protect it. Your version of it. Whatever shape it takes.

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If you’ve felt the nudge to step into your own alignment this year, if you feel that pull - that flicker of your own whimsy waking up - the spring Elements of Brand workshop dates just went live. I’d love to have you at the table.

elementsofbrand.com

I may forget to text you back for three days, but I know how you order a martini. I’ll forget someone’s birthday, but remember they hate cilantro. I remember who needs a little bite of good chocolate after dinner, who eats around the olives, who wants extra salt without asking. My brain is a junk drawer of the wrong details - or maybe the right ones, depending on what you think memory is for.

There’s a specific pleasure in being remembered this way. Not in broad strokes - but in the margins. The almost-throwaway things that say: I’ve been paying attention, even when it didn’t look like it. I know what you reach for. I remember.

These aren’t grand gestures. They’re what’s left behind when you show up enough times to notice patterns. The residue of proximity.

Here’s the thing about attention: it doesn’t look like much when it’s happening.

My husband appears out of nowhere with toast when I forget to eat (again). I remember that my friend has a favorite brand of fancy mustard. I notice she only likes popcorn made with coconut oil and a little nutritional yeast. That she only drinks their coffee with real cream. Says he likes medium, but always steals bites of someone else’s medium-rare.

None of this is big.

But it’s what begins to collect when you love someone long enough to study their rhythms. The unspoken preferences. The tiny, private field notes you gather over time. The anthropology of feeding someone often enough to know what makes them feel at home.

That’s the part of hosting that feels intimate - the moment a dish lands in front of someone made exactly the way they like it. The moment you pour the wine you know they’ll reach for before they do.

And man, it feels good to be seen like that. Not in the big, declarative ways - but in the small, specific ones.

The world is feral right now - impatient, overstimulated, asking us to perform. To show up, make the meal, execute the holiday. I just left the market and everyone has forgotten their manners and sense of personal space. The aisles are grabby. Everyone’s head down and hands full. List-first, heart later.

So paying attention might be the most romantic, disarming, grounding thing we have left. Awareness feels like the only love language I trust.

So heading into this week, I’m choosing to pay attention. Not as some moral high ground. Just the decision to notice. Watching for the little tells. Who lights up and who needs space. Who tenses when the room is too loud. Who’s tired. Who’s trying.

The most generous thing I can offer isn’t perfection. It’s the thing I remembered. The detail I held onto when no one was looking.

Maybe that’s the whole point. You just show up and pay attention until slowly, occasionally, miraculously, someone feels known.

Because sometimes love is just saving the crispy corner. Sometimes it’s remembering they take their gin very cold and very dry, stirred not shaken. Sometimes it’s watching someone taste something and remember a flavor they’d almost forgotten.

The world is loud. But the things that matter are quiet.

And if you show up enough times and actually look, you start to hear them.

If your Thanksgiving is intimate and pared back this year - consider this small, luxurious feast. Simple, elegant, and perfect for cooking with someone you love.

Caramelized Onion and Gruyère Tart

New York Strip Roast with Rosemary + Smoked Salt Crust, Shallot Jus

Browned Butter Parsnip + Horseradish Purée

Charred Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta Maple Glaze

Warm Chocolate Soufflé, Espresso Whip

Caramelized Onion and Gruyère Tart

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But today is different. Today, I’m making short ribs for people I love, and short ribs take four hours. Minimum. You can’t rush a braise. That’s the whole point of a braise.

Here’s what I know about myself: I am not someone who sits still.

Give me a free afternoon and I will reorganize a closet, clean out a drawer, find a new project, create something out of nothing, try a new recipe - anything. I treat open time like a problem to solve.

Unscheduled hours make me twitchy. I want to use them - to emerge on the other side with something to show for myself. I can barely watch a movie without saying “pause it for a second” with something to chit chat about which drives my sweet husband bananas.

But cooking has always been different. In the kitchen, I slow down on purpose. I choose recipes that take all day. I want the dough to rise twice. I want the onions to go translucent slowly, then golden, then jammy. I want the meat to braise until it falls apart at the suggestion of a fork.

The longer it takes, the more you know I love you. That’s always been my language.

Our son took a long time to get here.

I don’t mean the pregnancy, though that felt long too. I mean before. The months that stretched into years. The waiting that became its own season, unmarked on any calendar.

And now that he’s here, everyone wants to talk about how fast it goes. Oh, he’s crawling? Just wait. He’ll be off to college before you know it.

I know they mean well. But it makes me want to grab them by the shoulders. Do you know how long we waited? Do you know that I’m not ready to think about him leaving?

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He still doesn’t sleep through the night. Not consistently. We tried sleep training. I lasted five minutes before I went to him.

So instead, we do the slow way. The long way. I hold him at 3am and walk the dark house and wait for his breathing to change. Sometimes it takes five minutes. Sometimes forty-five. In the moment, it’s hard. My back aches. My eyes sting. I think about all the things I’m not doing - the sleep I’m not getting, the hours I’m losing.

But I know that when I’m very old, when I’m making my exit from this spinning rock, these will be the moments I want to go back to. Not the projects accomplished or the closets organized. The minutes I spent in the dark with his breath on my chest, waiting for him to soften into sleep.

That’s the thing about time. You can’t feel its value while you’re inside it.

A braise works because of what happens in the waiting. Collagen breaks down. Connective tissue softens. The tough thing becomes tender. The flavors deepen and marry and become more than the sum of their parts. None of this can be rushed. Heat alone won’t do it. You need heat and time.

I think about this when I’m up with him at night (not braising meat, but the softening). These are the hours no one sees, the slow work that makes the thing what it is.

Today, I’m spending all day on a meal that will be eaten in thirty minutes. I’ll brown the meat, build the braising liquid, slide the pot into the oven and wait. I’ll check it once an hour, not because it needs checking, but because I want to open the lid and smell what’s happening in there. Experience the transformation.

And when I set it on the table for the people I love, they’ll taste it. Not the ingredients - but the time. The hours. The choosing to stay.

It’s my way of saying: I was here in the long, quiet minutes, choosing you in the simplest way I know how. Depth comes from patience. Softness comes from staying. And the best things take time to become what they’re meant to be.

Tonight on the Private Dinner Menu:

Fig & Cambazola Toasts

Crisp Endive, Radicchio & Apple Salad
with manchego, candied walnuts and a maple–sherry vinaigrette

Braised Beef Short Ribs
with pumpkin, maple, and smoked paprika polenta, charred cabbage
wedge, and chili–orange breadcrumbs

Dark Chocolate Espresso Mousse
and flaky sea salt

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Below are my two favorite “I love you, this took all day” recipes.

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