Happy Sunday! For those new here: this is The Skinny, a free weekly newsletter designed to entertain and save you time—everyone’s most valued resource—by serving up our signature, curated lifestyle news.

Today’s The Skinny should take 3 minutes to breeze through, and is crafted to help enhance the week’s end with ideas and inspiration. What we’re covering: 

• The return of “Tomato Girl Summer,” a recipe for the best pre-season bruschetta & how to dress like a salad

• Getting inked: the Tramp Stamp’s comeback, high-tech tats, “wellness” patches as tattoos, and an epic list of regrettable tattoos

• From guitar legend Derek Trucks: Ass Pocket Whiskey, which is meant to be enjoyed—not admired

• Pantry raid: a 60 second swicy breakfast (with, yep, cottage cheese)

• Plus: the best frozen pizzas, “Connections” for sports fans, mental health benefits of gardening, belly fat loss strategies & Nike’s “Dirty Triple White” vs “Triple Triple Black”

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From the garden

Bruchetta chic is back

The Skinny: According to WWD and the windows of LOEWE Soho, “Tomato Girl Summer”—debuting in 2023 and led primarily by the brand’s cult-fave Tomato Leaves candle—is officially back. For anyone not in the know, this is the aesthetic for those who envision themselves eating bruschetta al fresco in Tuscany, or walking through a fragrant Italian garden barefoot wearing a La DoubleJ sundress (or something like this tomato red eyelet mini from The Gap, or these lovely cotton dresses curated by Vogue). Flash forward to 2024 and a viral tweet of a tomato “with amorphous folds” that someone commented was “so LOEWE,” leading to Jonathan Anderson entering the convo, and culminating in this season’s Tomato Clutch that sold out immediately. 

To get into the tomato garden vibe today: you can still get the OG Tomato Leaves as a candle or home fragrance or, for a more affordable version, might we suggest the just-launched Off the Vine from Bath & Body Works (and the EDP comes in adorable packaging that looks like a can of tomatoes).

Lest you think you should settle for just smelling like a tomato girl, with a little creativity you can also dress the part thanks to Alo’s “lettuce” colorway, Clare V’s “Kalamata,” or Moschino’s sold-out celery bag (with a crunchy price tag of $5K). 

While [actual] tomato season is not quite here, if you’re looking to make bruschetta now that tastes almost as good as it would with in-season tomatoes, the BIC jars are from from Stanislaus and part of the Corto Olive Oil Chef’s Essentials Kit*. Recipe here, but we suggest this hack (from when Nicole lived in Italy): cut a garlic clove in half and rub it over one side of the bread after toasting, and before the EVOO. 

Italian language tip: pronouncing it BRU-SHET-AH is wrong. The correct pronunciation is BRU-SKET-AH—full lesson on how to say it with its hard “k” here. However, despite our tone, it’s perfectly fine to pronounce it incorrectly, since everyone else does and whomever you’re talking to knows that this means a piece of toasted artisan bread with a savory topping (typically tomatoes).

The latest ink

All the tattoo news that’s fit to print 

The Skinny: Our tattoo deep dive started with news of the ’90s Tramp Stamp’s comeback—aka, required for admission into certain Vegas pool parties, along with knee-high gladiator sandals—but moved from low to high-brow/high-tech quickly. First, to close the loop on lower back tattoos: along with bedazzled Ed Hardy shirts showing up beyond the boardwalk, Tramp Stamps have apparently moved from slutty to “empowered” (but we support your lower back ink no matter where you fall on that spectrum). 

Things got interesting when we saw that disappearing/made-to-fade tattoos are still on the market, but that in fact they aren’t exactly disappearing as advertised. That led to the discovery of gold-leaf tattoos designed to be on-skin interfaces (created by MIT Media Lab), and vitamin and adaptogen patches in the form of tattoos (via a collab between ​​Bluestone Babe x Barrière). 

For the best of the worst, if you don’t cry-laugh while reading this, if we’re being honest, not sure we should be friends: this list of “San Diego's Most Regrettable Tattoos” is a living-in-the-moment lesson (that we live by, and support, starting with the “never forget” egg). However, if you happened to be someone who truly Does the Dew and got a tattoo of the OLD Mountain Dew logo, your regrettable tattoo might have value thanks to this smart contest celebrating the NEW logo (where you can win a trip to Vegas).

From the personal archives of tattoo regret, and SO to my butterfly, moon and cobra crew who got our tats on Colfax: turns out SugarBear is still in operation.

Pantry raid

:60 swicy cottage cheese toast

The Skinny: Scrolling through Instagram CAN have healthy benefits, as Nicole was inspired by this post to make her own CC toast, which has now become her 60-second go-to. It’s basically dressed up carbs with a dollop of the good stuff (aka protein in the form of our BF cottage cheese), healthy fats and a swicy kick. 

Could not be easier: toast, cottage cheese, EVOO, red pepper flakes/sweet pepper flakes, hot honey and EVOO (as you know our fave is Corto Olive Oil—and if you can get your hands on the Calabrian Chile version, the better).

In the spirit

Don’t take Derek Trucks’ bourbon too seriously

The Skinny: This item is about enjoying the simple pleasures of listening to some blues guitar, along with a couple swigs of bourbon. 

Waking up to today’s Morning Brew featuring an item on “Hollywood Hooch” was a reminder that it was time to share our latest (and favorite) spirit backed by someone famous: in this case legendary guitarist Derek Trucks with Ass Pocket Whiskey, born out of the belief that “bottles containing the world’s most coveted brown spirits should be cracked, not collected.” And with countless celebrity-backed spirits brands “fighting for space at the bar,” finding those that offer both authenticity and quality can be a challenge. 

Enter Ass Pocket Whiskey which, you guessed it, belongs in your ass pocket and is meant to be enjoyed, preferably at a music festival or outdoor get-together, and not taken so seriously. Not that it isn’t serious whiskey: APW No. 3A is rich and balanced, thanks to 15 years ageing in deep-charred #4 oak barrels and shaped by Kentucky’s intense seasonal shifts; while APW No. 3B was aged in cooler, more humid conditions resulting in one of the lowest barrel-strength whiskeys “in recent memory.”

Add to cart: While the recent release of the “Brotherly Release” box set has sold out, the bottles of 15YO and 9YO Kentucky Straight Bourbon are still available. Your taste buds, and ass pockets, will thank you.

Last Licks

This week’s newsfeed

• We love NYT’s The Athletic newsletters, and even more so since they have their own sports-themed version of Connections. 

• The best frozen pizzas to add to cart (per Wirecutter), and the top ones to leave out (spoiler/barf alert: “Goat Cheese & Beet Sauce”).

• Speaking of gardening, tomatoes and the like: ScienceDaily reports on a study that shows gardening may help reduce cancer risk, boost mental health.

• Guys, to most effectively lose belly (or other) fat, here’s the scientific answer to whether cardio before or after weightlifting is best.   

• Triple threat: if you can’t decide between a distressed or fresh white kicks, Nike recently released the Air Force 1 "Dirty Triple White" —which starts off dirty, but cleans up with use; and the [sold out] Air Force 1 Low “Triple Triple Black" that, conversely, becomes richer and more polished the more it’s worn.

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