Kutnick's Korner

This blog entry is about my unhealthy relationship with food and how diets have created it. At 43 years old, I long for the day where I will have a perfectly normal relationship with food again. And, I say "again" because I didn't have true food relationship issues until post college when I moved to Chicago in 1995. I know if you are a woman reading this who is equally as screwed up as me.....you get it when I say that I know exactly what size and weight I have been for the past 20 years. Wedding day, pre children, post babies, first day of my new job. The year. Things like that. I know exactly what size I was. And, what I weighed. That's some totally Fucked. Up. Shit. For 1 1/2 years I have been obsessing about the way I will look at my son's Bar Mitzvah which is now 6 days away. How will I look in the pictures?  He has worked SO INCREDIBLY hard on this, and I in parallel have worked hard to put a nice event together. I also worked hard to have my Bat Mitzvah...

I was just sitting here at the kitchen table doing some work. Thinking about the fact that it's almost 7:00pm, and I haven't started dinner. After years and years and years of beating myself up, I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that I loathe figuring out dinner. And, I loathe making it even more. It's not that I don't like to cook. I do. Give me an unlimited budget and unlimited time. Or, a holiday and I will have at it with pure joy and skill. But, on your average Wednesday night....after a long day at work...all I want to do is NOT make dinner. All I want to do is NOTHING. And, 12 1/2+ years ago, that would have been fine. Skip making dinner. Let's eat cereal. Except that now I have this job called  "mom", and part of this job is feeding my children with good nutrition and calcium so that they will grow. I am a planner in life. I am a total type A. I've been planning my son's Bar Mitzvah for a long time, and it's still...

I'm no Oprah....but I do have a list of some of my favorite "products" to share. .....here they are. Not in order: Kiehl's hand and body, aloe vera & oatmeal lotion. This is the best! I forgot how much I loved it-until I replenished last week. Great for hands, feet, elbows and legs. Won't leave you greasy or over scented.  Trish McEvoy black curling mascara. I've used this for 13+ years. It goes on like butter. And, it comes off with soap and water. You don't need to scrub and you don't need make up remover.  Senna golden brown eyebrow gel. Sometimes my brows get dull and drab. This product helps shape them and give them a nice color lift. I know it sounds weird, but it really is good stuff. Lasts a long time too! Skinceuticals Antioxidant Lip Repair. I suffer from chapped lips every winter. I have 10 different chapsticks, and nothing has truly solved the issue. Until I found this! It has saved me all winter. Doesn't smell. Isn...

I was listing to a podcast yesterday (Death Sex & Money). It was their 1 year anniversary episode and part of it was dedicated to capturing peoples' answers to the below question: "What has changed in your life in the past year?" And, I listened to what people had to say. Some fell in love. Some got married. Some got divorced. Some lost someone special. Some had babies. Some moved. Some were happier than a year ago. Some were now more depressed. But, regardless-nothing stayed exactly the same. 365 days is a significant amount of time to reflect back. And, then this morning when I looked at my husband and realized that it is June 12th....I started thinking about myself. Not where I was 1 year ago...but where I was 17 years ago. June 12, 1998. On Friday, June 12th, 1998 my then boyfriend...now husband proposed. Looking out at Lake Michigan. Dinner at Spiaggia later that evening. It was magical. I remember it so very clearly. That was 17 years ago. Today. So mu...

Just about a month ago, I said goodbye to the house I grew up in. I really don't mean to be overly dramatic about it, but it's kind of a big deal to me. Some of my belongings came with me to college in 1991. And, others have trickled to Chicagoland in boxes over the years. Yearbooks, trophies, collectibles....etc. And, very few things remained in "my growing up house". I always had a green and white stuffed turtle in my room. She sat wherever she was placed. Sometimes on a rocking chair. Sometimes on a shelf. But, regardless she was always there. And, truthfully, I never really thought about her all that much. She was an ornament. A part of my room. But, when I was in LA last month I confiscated her because she needed to be with my daughter. It's like I didn't have a choice. It had to happen. So, she got shipped home. I brought her to the dry cleaners to get fixed and cleaned. And, yesterday I picked up the turtle. I was literally beaming (the lady at the ...

The front doors of my parent's house have been a integral place of capturing photographic moments for over 40 years. They are doors. Every house has them. But, for some odd reason...these have been very special. So, why am I now thinking and even writing about the front doors of my parent's house? Good question. There are two places that I call home. My house. Where I live with my husband and two children in the northern suburbs of Chicago. And, my parent's house in Sherman Oaks, California. Technically my parent's house isn't my house anymore. But, it's home. It's where I grew up. Where I had multiple phone conversations with friends, where I did my homework for years, where I fought with my parents as a teenager, where I had sleepovers as a child and where I slept the night before I got married. Home. Where I lived from 1973-1991 until I ventured off to college. It's not very often that a 41 year old's parents live in the same house for 40+...

Picture a snow globe. I saw everything that was going on inside of it... but I wasn’t a part of it because I was on the outside looking in. That’s how I've always felt about Judaism. I was going to take on this Bat Mitzvah challenge in my 50s as an empty nester. But, when I spoke to Rabbi Kedar at a Lincolnshire party a few years ago-she encouraged me to do this BEFORE my kids. I didn’t want to steal their thunder, I told her. And, she said one of the best things I can do for my kids is set an example. And, not surprisingly, she was right. My family has heard me chanting my Torah Portion over and over again (they all know it now). They have occasionally come with me to Saturday Kol Shabbat services (my favorite service!). My kids know that on Tuesdays I won’t be home at 7pm when they get home from Hebrew school... Because I am at Hebrew School! My son and I even have the same teacher. They've seen my dedication, I am so glad it taught my kids a little something about accou...