The Richest Things

An Introduction

There was a night at Chateau Marmont — a rare sleepover, the kind Boo and I used to have all the time before partners and babies made the logistics more complicated. We’d spent the day wandering through art museums, just the two of us, and by evening we were tucked into a corner at Bar Marmont with cocktails, talking the way we always did — over each other, yes, but also, completing each other’s sentences.

At some point, we took a walk through the grounds, past the pool and through all that lush green, and found the way back to our bungalow. We stayed up half the night with pencils and paper spread across the bed, sketching restaurant concepts and oyster bars, mapping out our next decade of dreams in our own handwriting. Ten more years of building things together. We’d already had almost ten with Lady & Larder, and we were just getting started.

I’ve never felt richer than I did that night. Deeply seen. So lucky to be able to dream alongside someone who knew every part of me. I never thought too much about how other people saw me, because I knew how Boo saw me — and that was the foundation I’d built my entire life on. Being her twin sister was my core identity.

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It was never in our plans that we’d lose Boo. It was an outpatient surgery. On her hand. In the waiting room, we were debating where we’d get lunch once she was finished with the procedure. We never got to have that lunch.

In the year since her passing, everything has changed about the person I knew myself to be. That version of me can no longer exist without Boo. It was a package deal — one consciousness split into two bodies. So, rather unwillingly, I’ve spent the last 15 months in a deep state of curiosity with my inner self. Cracked open. Enough tears to fill an ocean. Submerged in shadow work. I’ve sat with trauma therapists, shamans, astrologers, tarot readers, and mediums. I’ve explored psychedelics and ketamine therapy. I’ve dipped my toes into learning about akashic records, ancient Peruvian ceremonial chants and offerings to Pachamama. I traveled to New Orleans and visited the city’s oldest cemetery, where we whispered Louisiana Voodoo wishes at Marie Laveau's tomb. I ventured to altars in Mexico City for Day of the Dead and took part in indigenous Aztec rituals. I immersed myself in geothermal hot springs and chased the Aurora Borealis in Iceland. Through it all I built a meditation practice that has forever changed me. There will be more about all of this to come.

This grief isn’t something I’ll move through. It doesn’t resolve… it transforms. In fact, contrary to what most people believe, it is the secret to being fully alive.

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What I know now about grief is that it demands a witness. Only then can we allow ourselves to be stretched wide by it. It is part of our shared humanity, and yet so many of us try to move through it alone, quietly, as if loss is something to get over rather than something to carry on the journey with us.

So this is not a pivot from the original plan, but an expansion of it. The same love letters we planned to write together — only now they’ll be written with more ink (Sorry Boo, I’ll work on keeping the copy tight).

Double Cream will be a place for grief. And it will be a place for the things that make this life worth living — the richest things. Family recipes and farmers market mornings. Cheese that tells a story. Seasonal rituals that mark the passage of time. Things that move us and evoke joy. Travel that changes you. Wine worth a longer pour. The art of gathering people around a table, even when — especially when — someone is missing from it.

Boo and I dreamed this up together, pencils on paper, halfway through the night. Her fingerprints are all over it — the name, the logo in her handwriting, the light that runs through everything now. She is here. And so am I. And now, so are you.

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Before I go, I want to leave you with something. Not a recipe — that’s coming, I promise — but a question.

What makes you feel rich?

Not wealthy. Rich. The kind of rich that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with being alive and paying attention. I’ll go first:

Afternoon light shining golden through the window.

A long table of friends lingering after a shared meal, deciding to open one more bottle of wine.

A clear night sky when you can see all the stars and remind yourself of the scale of everything.

Clean sheet night.

Cutting open a perfectly ripe avocado.

The smell of citrus blossoms.

Notes in Boo’s handwriting that I still find tucked into drawers.

Being truly known by someone you love.

One open parking spot in a full lot.

Eye contact in a room full of people.

Hot coffee enjoyed outside with a bit of morning sun on your face.

Teaching my son how to cook.

Silence that doesn’t feel empty.

These are the richest things in my life. They’ve been here all along.

Pull up a chair. There’s room at this table.

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Share in the comments below.

I want to hear about all of your riches.