When Harper’s Bazaar asked me to write a story for their March issue about the L.A. based charity Baby2Baby—an organization I knew for its star-studded galas and selfie-driven fashion brand-sponsored events—I was hesitant. Couldn’t many of these enormously wealthy and very famous women on its board simply write a check and tackle the issue of child poverty directly without packing diaper bags one day a month, or getting dolled up for a red carpet? Yes, I discovered, they could, but there is a reason that they do this instead. What unfolded over the course of my reporting was the best kind of story, because it surprised even me—a good deed performed for public consumption does not negate its doing (even as it grinds on my Yankee sensibilities) it can, in some cases, even pointedly magnify its effects. With the horror of January’s fires in our own backyard here in Los Angeles, I suddenly had a front row seat to the kind of disaster relief Baby2Baby has received international accolades for from organizations like FEMA and the Red Cross. The work they do is astounding, and it is important. The boldfaced names are just part of the arsenal.
An excerpt from my piece is below.
Baby2Baby was not born in 2011, when the charming and photogenic and extremely well-connected duo of Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein, a former model and corporate lawyer, respectively, took over, but it might as well have been. In the 14 years since Patricof and Weinstein became co-CEOs, Baby2Baby has transformed from what was once a small local resource for donating gently used baby goods into a national nonprofit juggernaut known for its deep bench of celebrity benefactors (its board, which B2B calls its “Angels,” is made up of stars, social-media-friendly entrepreneurs, and the children or wives of billionaires), its star-studded annual gala, which raised $17.1 million in 2024 and is a high point of the Los Angeles fall social calendar, and its media-friendly volunteer opportunities for brands that want attention for more than just the same old store party. If it is possible to imagine such a thing as a “cool girl” charity, that is what Baby2Baby has in many ways become, buoyed along by celebrity news coverage and tagged Instagrams. But then, as Patricof and Weinstein might say, cool girls get shit done too. (Both are far too polished to actually say shit in front of a reporter.)
Given the gravity and scope of what they do, as well as the cynically narrow public perception of most celebrity-endorsed philanthropic organizations (one acquaintance heard Baby2Baby described as “that cliquey L.A. rich-mom charity”), I ask Patricof and Weinstein, sitting in their Culver City offices in December, if they ever feel underestimated. They swivel in their chairs to cock an eyebrow at each other.
“Most hours,” says Weinstein.
“Every minute of every day?” Patricof replies.
Underestimate this operation at your peril. There may be a notion of charity as a socially acceptable activity for gainfully unemployed women of great means on par with gardening or going to lunch, but over the past 14 years Baby2Baby has distributed more than 450 million critical items to children living in poverty. They know what they’re doing—helping people who really need it—and they are excellent at it. The story is at the very end of the excellent March issue (Rihanna is on the cover!) if you pick it up in print, and if not, read it online and let me know what you think? (And let me know if there are any charitable organizations you especially admire lately. In a miasma of Elon Musk wielding a (sometimes literal) chainsaw against treasured institutions and everything America holds dear I’ve been trying to focus on the helpers, as Mr. Rogers might say.)
THINGS TO SEE:
If you are in New York on or a little after March 20th: South Korean painter Seung Ah Paik: BODY CARTOGRAPHY at Gratin. Byron Houdayer, an acclaimed art expert and curator whose gimlet eye I trust in all realms, really, but especially in matters of taste, curated it, and I suspect that means it can’t be missed. So: don’t?
I have been soaking in Los Angeles’ rainy days by diving into the Criterion Collection in between waiting for new episodes of The Pitt (still the best thing on TV), and it’s been a perfect delight. Expert curation—no bad choices!—is such a nice break from the endless ooze of other platforms, the what do you want to watch I don’t know what do you feel like where at best you end up somewhere politely brain numbing, like Great British Bake Off, which by now is sort of the equivalent of tossing up your hands and leaving the room. (I have, however, enjoyed the not-wholly-translated-feeling K-Foodie Meets J-Foodie, on Netflix, in which from what I can tell a Korean balladeer turned food star, Sung Si-kyung, convinces his hero, the Japanese actor/writer/director/foodie, Yutaka Matsushige, to take him to his favorite restaurants. They eat, they joke, they make me hungry, there’s not enough episodes available.) Back to Criterion: I rewatched Tampopo and Babette’s Feast, classic food movies that feel like exquisite fables, as well as new-to-me melodramas (The Bad and the Beautiful—Kirk Douglas! and who can resist Old Hollywood?!) and batshit Preston Sturges capers (the wonderfully ridiculous Palm Beach Story) alike. The best version of myself maybe only has Criterion Collection and that’s all. But then, of course, what about The Pitt? Good point.
THINGS TO READ:
I came across Janet Malcolm’s Still Pictures in the best way: it was pressed into my hands by a friend I don’t see enough. “It’s short!” she said, “and good!” It is. It’s a collection of brief snippets of memory inspired by her own family photographs, and it feels at once totally effortless and painstakingly honed, filled with Malcolm’s typically perfect sentences and flashes of cool brilliance. She has a way of distilling enormous experiences (childhood, familial love, adolescence) into a few simple words; it’s the kind of writing that can feel like a magic trick. Recalling the rituals of the Christian summer camp she attended, she writes ‘Children are mystical-minded creatures; they sense the strangeness of it all’; remembering her Czech school teacher: ‘sites of idelness and wasted time like the Czech school were fertile breeding grounds for the habit many of us form in childhood of always being in love with somebody…unbeknownst to ourseles, [we] were grateful for the safety of not being loved in return. The pleasure and terror of that would come later.’ And most touchingly, in my mind, a marked improvement on the Tolstoy banger: ‘All happy families are alike in the illustion of superiority their children touchingly harbor.’ I could not be more reminded of my own young adolescence if someone had pulled out my own diary. (Please, never do that.)
Perhaps no one could sum it up better than Malcolm’s friend, the always excellent Ian Frazier, who wrote the introduction to this collection a little over a week after her death, and exemplifies why it’s always a good idea to be friends with smart people who can write well. “Janet Malcolm wrote nonfiction like no one else, won a wide and devoted readership, knew the stark difference between delight and whatever isn’t delight, and made some people angry with the straightfowardness and occasional asperity of her work,” he writes. “She wrote these pieces at a level of wisdom that took a lifetime to attain, and that almost nobody reaches at any age.” There you have it.
This story is the perfect New Yorker story, not least because it captures a very real concern about New York, which is that sometimes everyone is really kind of awful. I also used to live around the corner from the Great Jones Cafe (it’s where, over martinis and gumbo, I introduced my partner to my dad for the first time), next to the flophouse that is mentioned, which was still a flophouse when I lived there. It was a wonderful time in my life, and I’m sure many people remember the me of that time as perfectly awful, too. (Of course they do, its New York!) I remember the Elvis well.
I really liked this piece by R.O. Kwon on how power lifting made her a better writer:
How good it feels, as the news blares its daily crises, to keep getting stronger. Lifting aside, I tend to be fretful, alive to dangers. I prepare for emergencies; I have go-bags packed. When a tsunami warning hit San Francisco last month, I knew which neighborhoods might be in peril. Frantic with knowledge, I texted friends, asking if they were close to shore. Once, I took a first-responder class. Much of it was useful; toward the end, as we practiced what we’d do in case of a fire, rehearsing dragging unconscious bodies out of a building, I left early. I didn’t want to waste the instructors’ time, there being so little dragging I could do. Now, I can do more.
When the news/world feels insurmountably dreadful, getting stronger is a great response. The endorphins alone!
THINGS TO EAT:
If you’re in Los Angeles, run, do not walk, to Aunt Yvette’s Kitchen for fabulous Ethiopian food in Eagle Rock. Delicious, from the food to the vibe in the (charmingly intimate!) room. Utter heaven. (You need a reservation but it’s not impossible.)
I love a nut butter. If you happen to be one of the millions of American women currently trying to eat more protein: add some nut butter! (Plus, skin, hair, nail, metabolic drama? Good fats are where it’s at.) Ground Up’s blends are absolutely bananas (and would be good with bananas), and the company is wonderful: they provide job training to women overcoming adversity in the Portland area. The collab they just released with Molly Yeh (black sesame!!!!!!!!!!) was just added to my cart, but the Coconut Cardamom with Chia Seed Almond + Cashew Butter is on regular rotation.
When Alexis, the genius behind Hot Jamn, posted this banana cornbread loaf recipe I screenshotted it and sent the kind of heart-eyed drooling emojis one usually receives posting thirst traps from Greek islands. So: let’s make it???
THINGS TO WEAR: I am currently packing for a series of totally insane travels, after which I will have more insight to share on this front, but for now, I ordered these silky pajamas, and they are perfect for this season and the next. This featherlight rain parka is perfect for when you want to be dry and NOT CLAMMY. And then yesterday I went to a wonderful lunch for Mother Denim x La Double J new collaboration and deeply coveted this skirt, which is screaming out to go on vacation this summer, and the supremely cool patch-heavy sweatshirts, one of which the divine Carolyn Murphy was wearing and looking perfect in. (Though yes, of course she does look perfect in everything.) Not for nothing, lots of great easy summer cocktail/ chicest wedding guest options in this collection, too.
OK! Thank you, as ever, for being here. More soon! xx