Ten years ago, my twin sister Boo and I started Lady & Larder with a simple belief: that cheese could bring people together in a more intentional way.
What we didn’t know then was how far that belief would take us — or how much it would ask of us along the way.
Five years in, we launched Lady Letters — a traditional newsletter that became a quiet home for everything we loved but couldn’t quite fit into the brand. The seasonal musings. The travel. Our favorite nail polish colors. The rosé we kept stocked all summer. The olive oil. The finds. It was the beginning of a shared conversation that we thought we would have forever to finish.
Double Cream was the next chapter. Our bigger dream. A space where that voice could fully open up — where we could wax poetic about cheese and recipes and the pleasures that make ordinary life feel like something worth showing up for. A love letter, really. Written by both of us.
Boo passed away unexpectedly at the start of 2025.
In the year that followed, I kept coming back to this. To what we’d planned. To whether I could do it without her. And slowly, I understood that doing it was a way of being with her — and that there was now one more layer to add. This is the sticky part. The part that feels raw and feral. The, at times, unbearable truth.
Grief lives here too.
Not as the headline. But woven in alongside the cheese and the recipes and the beauty — because that’s where I live now, and I suspect some of you do too. I’ve learned that wonder and sorrow are not opposites. That you can set a beautiful table and ache at the same time. That joy and grief can coexist. Grief, in fact, opens the door to the full spectrum of this experience. That life, even now, is worth reveling in.
So this is Double Cream. A love letter to cheese, wonder, and the art of living with intention — even now.
I was always the rambler. Boo was the editor along with being the best copy writer and storyteller I’ve even known. She’d read everything I wrote and say, Sarah, say less.
She was right. She usually was.
Watching her edit was like watching a master work. I’m going to do my best with the editing. I can promise you that.
I hope when you come here, you feel held. I hope if you’re carrying something, you feel seen. And I hope you find, as I keep finding, that there is still so much magic in this existence.
Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
— Sarah Simms, co-founder of Lady & Larder
For Boo — this was always ours.
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