Join us each week as we explore what’s shaping our world in beauty, wellness, lifestyle, and culture. Through the lens of our team, The Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T. is a curated reflection on what we’re reading, eating, purchasing, obsessing over, recommending, and treating ourselves to!
What We’re Reading This Week
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Brief but subtly radical, this extended essay from the author of Braiding Sweetgrass takes a single fruit tree as its starting point and expands outward into an argument about how we might restructure our relationship to generosity, abundance, and the living world. It is a book that asks you to reconsider the assumptions so deeply embedded in daily life that you have stopped noticing them. Slim enough to finish in an afternoon, lasting enough to revisit for years.
The Wren, The Wren, by Anne Enright
Anne Enright, one of the most decorated novelists working in the English language and winner of the Booker Prize, returns with a novel that traces three generations of women shaped, and sometimes unmade, by the long shadow of a celebrated Irish poet. It is a book about inheritance in the most human sense: the stories handed down through families, the damage that travels quietly from one generation to the next, and the difficult work of deciding what to carry forward and what to finally set down.
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Brief but subtly radical, this extended essay from the author of Braiding Sweetgrass takes a single fruit tree as its starting point and expands outward into an argument about how we might restructure our relationship to generosity, abundance, and the living world. It is a book that asks you to reconsider the assumptions so deeply embedded in daily life that you have stopped noticing them. Slim enough to finish in an afternoon, lasting enough to revisit for years.
The Wren, The Wren, by Anne Enright
Anne Enright, one of the most decorated novelists working in the English language and winner of the Booker Prize, returns with a novel that traces three generations of women shaped, and sometimes unmade, by the long shadow of a celebrated Irish poet. It is a book about inheritance in the most human sense: the stories handed down through families, the damage that travels quietly from one generation to the next, and the difficult work of deciding what to carry forward and what to finally set down.
What We’re Eating
Vedge, Philadelphia
Vedge has been setting the standard for vegetable-forward fine dining since Richard Landau and Kate Jacoby opened it on Locust Street more than a decade ago, and it remains one of the most compelling restaurants in the city. The menu changes with what is in season and what is interesting, which means it rewards return visits. Dishes are built around technique and intention rather than substitution, vegetables treated not as a concession but as the most interesting thing on the plate. The vibe is warm and unhurried, the cocktail program serious, and the kind of meal that tends to convert people who walked in skeptical. If you have not been recently, this is your not so subtle nudge.
What We’re Purchasing
Byredo Cotton Blend Hand Wash
The simplest seasonal swap is often a new scent at the sink. Byredo's Cotton Blend Hand Wash cleanses thoroughly while leaving hands soft and delicately fragranced, its opening of aldehydes, saffron, and dark rum giving way to jasmine, violet, and cedarwood before settling into a base of crisp amber and skin musks. The result is warm and clean at once, the olfactory equivalent of freshly laundered linen on a summer morning. A small change to a daily ritual that registers more than you’d expect.
Fornasetti Wall Plates
Piero Fornasetti spent decades printing the same face, that of the 19th-century opera singer Lina Cavalieri, onto hundreds of variations of his iconic porcelain plates, each one stranger and more arresting than the last. Collected individually or arranged in a constellation on a wall, they occupy the rare category of decorative object that is genuinely impossible to tire of. Part surrealist provocation, part design history, part summer project: hunting for the right one is half the pleasure.
P.Nina Venus Oyster Shell Necklace
A sterling silver oyster shell, worn smooth as if it has spent years turning in the tide, suspended on a 42-inch light blue silk cord. Designed by P.Nina, it appears as an offering from Venus and wears like one: understated, beautiful, and just strange enough to feel like a discovery rather than a purchase. The cord can be swapped for a favorite chain. The kind of piece you reach for all summer without thinking twice.
Byredo Cotton Blend Hand Wash
The simplest seasonal swap is often a new scent at the sink. Byredo's Cotton Blend Hand Wash cleanses thoroughly while leaving hands soft and delicately fragranced, its opening of aldehydes, saffron, and dark rum giving way to jasmine, violet, and cedarwood before settling into a base of crisp amber and skin musks. The result is warm and clean at once, the olfactory equivalent of freshly laundered linen on a summer morning. A small change to a daily ritual that registers more than you’d expect.
Fornasetti Wall Plates
Piero Fornasetti spent decades printing the same face, that of the 19th-century opera singer Lina Cavalieri, onto hundreds of variations of his iconic porcelain plates, each one stranger and more arresting than the last. Collected individually or arranged in a constellation on a wall, they occupy the rare category of decorative object that is genuinely impossible to tire of. Part surrealist provocation, part design history, part summer project: hunting for the right one is half the pleasure.
P.Nina Venus Oyster Shell Necklace
A sterling silver oyster shell, worn smooth as if it has spent years turning in the tide, suspended on a 42-inch light blue silk cord. Designed by P.Nina, it appears as an offering from Venus and wears like one: understated, beautiful, and just strange enough to feel like a discovery rather than a purchase. The cord can be swapped for a favorite chain. The kind of piece you reach for all summer without thinking twice.
What We’re Obsessing Over
Swimming, as a Practice
There is a reason swimming feels different from other exercises. Neuroscientists point to sustained rhythmic movement paired with breath control as one of the more reliable ways to reduce cortisol and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The buoyancy helps too, temporarily relieved of its own weight, the body relaxes in ways it otherwise resists. It is also, almost incidentally, an exceptional full-body workout. A summer swim practice, however modest, tends to reshape the day around itself. One of the season's most accessible and underrated resets.
The Dinner Table as Ritual
Summer is the season we actually do it. We text the group chat, pick a date, and suddenly there are eight people around a table that probably only seats six comfortably, passing dishes, refilling glasses, and losing track of time in the best possible way. The meal itself almost doesn't matter. What matters is the particular ease that settles over a table when everyone has eaten well and no one is in any hurry to leave.
There is real science behind why it feels so good. Strong social connection is one of the most consistent predictors of long-term health and happiness, more so than diet or exercise alone. But you don't need a study to know that a long dinner with the people you love does something for you that nothing else quite replicates. It resets something. This summer, host more than you think you have time for. Keep the menu simple, the table full, and the evenings long.
What We’re Recommending
America 250 Weekend, Delaware River Waterfront
From June 26 through June 28, the Delaware River Waterfront takes over as the city's center of gravity, with three days of live music, fireworks, and open-air markets. Cherry Street Pier, Independence Blue Cross RiverRink Summerfest, and Spruce Street Harbor Park each bring something different: roller skating and boardwalk rides, hammocks strung with views of the river, the Liberty Flea running both weekend mornings, a patriotic concert and fireworks Saturday night. The city’s Family Fun Day closes it out Sunday afternoon. The food is good, the drinks are cold, and the whole event has the amazing energy of Philadelphia throwing itself the perfect party for itself and citizens!
NYC Uptown Arts Stroll, Northern Manhattan
Now in its 24th year, the Uptown Arts Stroll is one of New York's most deeply neighborhood-rooted cultural events. Hosted by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, the celebration runs through Washington Heights and Harlem across open studios, concerts, workshops, and exhibitions, with local artists opening their doors at venues including The Children's Art Carnival and The Bonnefont. The stroll closes out at the end of June with a concert.
Treatment Highlight
The Case for a Midsummer Facial
Late June sits at a particular inflection point for skin. Sun exposure has accumulated, even if you've been diligent about protection. Humidity has shifted the skin's behavior. Travel, disrupted routines, and increased time outdoors have collectively added up to a complexion that may be performing well on the surface while holding onto congestion, uneven texture, or early signs of oxidative stress that a good treatment can address before they become visible concerns.
This is the moment we'd argue most strongly for a professional facial, not as a reward or indulgence, though it is both of those things, but as maintenance. The skin is doing the most demanding work of the year right now. Giving it the attention it needs mid-season rather than waiting until September is the kind of forward-thinking care that shows in your skin through the fall.
Book a treatment at Rescue Spa and come in exactly as you are. We'll take it from there!