Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

Especially if you’re on Love Island USA.

For me on Saturday, breakfast was a dry martini with goat cheese olives at Hillstone.

A restaurant like Hillstone is my favorite. I love classic American fare, great service, and most importantly, incredibly rich foods such as spinach and artichoke dip and and a crispy chicken sandwich. Because of this, I woke up on Friday and chose to fast until the 2:30 reservation I had. A Hillstone reservation should not go to waste, and to waste it would not.

Before Hillstone, I enjoyed my first Summer Friday of 2026, as noted in Friday Saturday’s post:

I woke up early and worked out, cleaned my apartment, and then headed out to get a haircut from Brittany at Jenna Perry Hair. I used to get $40 haircuts straight across the bottom, but I decided that part of becoming a woman was investing in your hair, which I don’t do much of because I’ve never dyed it. Brittany basically hosted my bat mitzvah in the chair, told me that while my hair was beautiful, it was a little girlish, and long layers would do a lot of favors for me.

If you’re a girl, you know that the word “layers” can be really scary. Historically, layers have done me really dirty. I got some sort of a layered bob right before transferring colleges, I’ve had chunks of hair missing that was supposed to be “angled front pieces”, and I’ve been overall botched more often than not. Brittany’s confidence in how good this would look was enough for me to trust her, and it resulted in the best haircut of my life.

I had plans on Friday night to celebrate my dear friend Tommy’s birthday, which was great because I love Tommy and want to celebrate him, but I can also show off my new haircut fresh out of the chair and in public. We went to FourFiveSix in Williamsburg, sat outside and had some cosmos while watching the Knicks game, where I prompted many solicited compliments to which my friends kindly obliged.

The best part of the summer for me personally is waking up slightly hungover and watching the Love Island USA episode that you missed the night(s) before. When the first episode premiered on Tuesday, I felt overwhelmed for obvious reasons. Although I’m a LI veteran at this point in life, having watched multiple seasons of UK and USA, it’s still an incredibly daunting journey to start. However, it’s daunting until it’s not, and come Saturday when there’s no episode, you’ll find yourself missing your temporary summer family.

It’s really fun to see my friends watch Love Island for the first time.

There are so many rules and so much nuance to it. If your man doesn’t bring you breakfast, it’s over. If he does bring you breakfast but it’s just a plate of scrambled eggs and some toast, start pulling some other people for a chat. If he brings you a well-balanced plate of fruit, eggs, avocado toast, and pancakes, consider yourself engaged. All bets are off during challenges, you can kiss anyone and do anything with no hard feelings (at least it should be), and your favorite person will become your least favorite in the span of a night.

It’s truly such a magical show that brings immense joy to my summer. It’s so incredibly stupid, but so incredibly important in helping my ability to turn my brain off after a long day at work, and just watch hot people make mistakes in love over and over again, trapped in a giant villa in Fiji.

Continuing my weekend of fabulous eating, my sister and I are getting Sunday dinner at EJ’s Luncheonette, one of the top 3 places that TikTok has ruined for those of us who have loved it long before it went viral. I will absolutely be getting a chocolate milkshake and then we’ll build the rest of the meal from there.

I’m very scared for the third and final part of the Summer House reunion on Tuesday, sandwiched in between two very important basketball games for New Yorkers. I made reservations for my friends to watch on both Monday and Wednesday, so I’m expecting my friends to show up with some sort of trophy that states I’m the best reservation-maker on the planet (kidding 💋).

If you’re looking for somewhere to watch the game, I have a few recs here. They’re mostly chill where you can enjoy yourself, take a seat, and not be afraid of being elbowed by someone from Long Island.

• Bar Oliver in Two Bridges, I watched the game here last Wednesday and it was lively yet lovely

• Half Pint in the West Village, they had some open reservations left when I looked

• Forgetmenot in the Lower East Side, this will probably be pretty rowdy but a cool crowd nonetheless

• Le Dive in the Lower East Side, I walked past on my way home on Wednesday and they had their huge TV up inside

• Grand Street Pizza in the Lower East Side, they had a truck they were projecting the game onto on Wednesday and the pizza is phenomenal.

The truth is, nothing is going to be chill this week. I just read a NYT article that the MSG watch party on Friday led to dozens of arrests, and on my little street with no bars for a few blocks, there was hooting and hollering after Wednesday’s win. We’re surely in for it, New Yorkers.