List 67

Love: That the Milwaukee Brewers have won the NL Central - their first division win since 1982.  Aside from the Brewers being the team I grew up with, it's hard to not love a team whose home stands feature a "sausage race" in the bottom of the sixth inning - a bratwurst, a kielbasa, an Italian sausage, a chorizo and a hot dog, racing around the field.

Like: Tavern League, a book of artful photographs of old school Wisconsin taverns, many of which are cooler than any big city bar could ever try to be.

Discovery: This portrait of Milwaukee artist Jack Madsen and his wife from 1955, found at Milwaukee's Riverview Antiques store a few years ago. They look super chic and timeless.  

Obsession: The Thorn Miniatures at the Chicago Art Institute.  Whenever I'm in town (as I was for business these past few days), I make a stop here to see these little rooms. The level of detail at this tiny scale is pretty amazing.

Complaint: That Top Shop has yet to open in San Francisco.  I went through their flagship U.S. store in Chicago and there was the potential to need to buy an extra suitcase. I know you can shop online, but I prefer to wander a store.

List 66

Love: Having a garden, again.  Now that all the work we've been doing on the house and yard is done, we finally have planting boxes and have put in a passle of herbs, lettuces and winter crops like kale, broccoli and carrots.

Like: Philodendruns.  We have a fairly horrible track record with house plants, and the cats like to shred the leaves, but I just love the exotic vibe of these plants, and the lush hit of green they add to interiors.

Discovery: I Am Love, which was sitting in its Netflix envelope gathering dust for half a year until I finally chose it for treadmill viewing a few days ago.  Set in a beautifully photographed Milan, it stars the always amazing Tilda Swinton as a Russian woman who married into a wealthy Italian family decades ago and who, after one fateful night, is shaken from her passive, luxe life.  

Obsession:  Pinterest (again). Back in List 3, I was into stalking a few people whose style I admired on Pinterest, but not pinning myself.  Now, I am developing a pinning problem (though not as much as certain friends and co-workers), snapping up images for my many boards. 

Complaint:  The tease of Fall cooking magazines in my mailbox.  The recipes and photographs of dishes like braised short ribs, chicken pot pies, savory stuffed pumpkins, butternut squash soup and rustic apple tarts make me ache for for cooler, cozy weather and a fire in the fireplace.  But it's only just now getting warm in the Bay Area.

List 65

Love: 1930s fashion. Especially the styles sported by Faye Dunaway's Bonnie Parker.

Like: Kit Kittridge. If you have a daughter, inevitably you will have to deal with the American Girl phenomenon. Looking at the catalog, I cringe when I imagine factory workers in China putting together miniature salon chairs for dolls. But the historical dolls pass muster with me - at least little girls in 2011 can learn a bit about the past. Aspiring reporter Kit's Depression-era story appeals to me most, and I am doing my best to convince Stella that Kit should be the girl for her.

Discovery: Rules of Civility, the debut novel by Amor Towles, a 40something banker-with-an-M.A.-in-English, who channels a bit of F. Scott. The book is about three friends in New York who meet on New Year's Eve in 1937, and features a wonderful lead character in Katey Kontent. Time to see Midnight in Paris again to get over the "I should have been born in another time" feeling the book inspired.

Obsession: 1930s photography. From the documentary portraits of Americans struggling to get by, by greats such as Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, to Margaret Bourke White's WPA architecture shots.

Complaint: A decidedly modern one:  I wish publishers and sellers would come up with a scheme by which one could get both a hardcover book and a kindle/digital version for one price (maybe just $2 more than the hardcover on its own.) I enjoyed Rules of Civility so much that I wanted to get it off my iPad and into my permanent library, and was forced to pay twice.

List 64

Love: The great McSweeney's foray into food-focused publishing. Lucky Peach (the new quarterly magazine done in collaboration with Momofuku's David Chang) and Mission Street Food, (the cookbook and story of San Francisco's "improbable restaurant") are both very fun to read, highly informative and beautifully designed. Hopefully this is the start of a whole McSweeney's food-writing empire.

Like: Oven-roasted cherry tomatoes (olive oil, kosher salt, 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes). They can make even typically bland boneless, skinless chicken breasts more exciting. Add a side of greens and you've got an easy, fast and healthy weeknight dinner that sits pretty on the plate.

Discovery: The Local Butcher Shop, Chez Panisse alums Aaron and Monica Rocchino's new Gourmet Ghetto, well, local butcher shop. Not only is the meat of the highest quality, butchered and cut to order, everything else from the subway tiles to the pin-stripped aprons makes it a stop that promises your meal will be somehow more special too.

Obsession: Creating a turntable/receiver/speakers set-up in both our living room and in the backyard studio. (Currently, we're one down and one to go.) I really like these Cambridge Audio S20 dark oak speakers and picked up a pair. Berkeley's Sound Well is a great resource for restored stereo components.

Complaint: That the Out the Door in the Westfield is "closed indefinitely." Their fresh vegetarian spring rolls have been my favorite lunch. Now I will have to schlepp down to the Ferry Building once a week to satisfy that particular craving.