Why go with just plain chocolate cake when you can add a hint of mint?

This summer in Sweden I was unhappy to find out that the small local egg farm up the road had closed down. I wasn’t sure why, and it all seemed odd as there was one rooster left, who was crying out loud, and sadly. Then one day, I spotted a mother sow in a field close to our house. She was proudly walking around in the mud with her new born piglets all around her. The farm also had free-range chickens, ducks and lambs. I was happy again.

Okay, the concept is slightly macabre, but so are these resurrected toys and fairy tales.

In consideration of the holiday season, let’s reflect on Christmas’ past: like that year you had to complete your Jem and the Holograms doll collection or you would just die. (She truly was outrageous.) Or that year mom got a black eye scoring you your first Cabbage Patch Kid. Where’s Rainbow Brite now, I wonder? We’re guessing at the bottom of some rainbow, or dumped in a New Jersey landfill like a bit character from The Sopranos.

Designers have long found inspiration in pleats, from Mariano Fortuny’s “Delphos” dress to Stella McCartney’s standout AW2011 collection.

Box, Accordion, Inverted, Honeycomb, Knife – there are as many types of pleats as there are plausible explanations for when and where they first originated. From evidence of plissé style pleats found in Viking graves in Birka as far back as 10 B.C.. to Mariano Fortuny’s stunning art nouveau “Delphos” dress in 1920 to Stella McCartney’s directional use of stiffened micropleats in her standout AW2011 collection – it’s clear pleating enjoys both a long tradition of inspiring ethereally classic style, and is set to enjoy a roaring revival in 2012.

When life gives you lemons, use them to clean your house.

Juicy, aromatic and highly acidic, lemons bring out the flavor in sweet and savory foods but they nearly always play a supporting role in the kitchen. Stop relegating them to the rim of your glass and give these winter citrus fruits their due – because they’re serious cleaning and freshening powerhouses. These 20 unusual uses for lemon juice will make your home look and smell fresh, brighten your laundry, and improve your hair, nails and skin.

Quick tip: roll a fresh lemon under your palm on the countertop to soften it up for easier juicing.

In homage to mixed tapes, record players and analog youth.

Feeling nostalgic for a simpler time when mixed tapes meant, “I love you?” Maybe these limited edition prints will help. Designed by Aimée Wilder, who sources her inspiration from typography, logo design, illustration, textiles, toy design and rock poster art, each print is signed and numbered.Only 25 are available in each color (they come in earth, denim, sienna, coriander, teal and neon), which are silk-screened onto archival eco-friendly card stock.

ColumnWhat defines the new chic? Grit and glimmer in conscious measure.

Over dinner recently, a colleague and I abandoned a hot and heavy discussion about the political zeitgeist for something decidedly more dessert-appropriate: women. The End of Men, the death of the the Death of Marriage myth, Lady Gaga, gay marriage, the endless debates about women getting funded in Silicon Valley – XX as cultural object is too hot to handle right now, but it’s less What Women Want and more What Women Are (and …

Look beyond traditional jeans and make things more interesting by finding new ways to wear this beloved fabric.

If you ask anyone, male or female, what their favorite outfit is, there’s a good chance it includes denim. This fabric, originally designed for cowboys in the late 1800s has become a closet staple like no other. Besides jeans, there are lots of great items out there made from denim — like these bleach-splattered shoes, a sweet dress, bodega bag and pendant. Complement your blues with an updated version of the perfect trench coat, and a cool upcycled necklace.

ColumnJane Austen’s tomes on relationships are revisited with 21st century reading glasses.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

These words mark the opening passage of British author Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Pride & Prejudice. Although the conclusions she draws about love and intimacy are starkly insufficient for contemporary audiences, Austen continues to be fiercely relevant because of her lightning-hot investigative process and sharp social commentary. With a forked tongue pointed directly at the landed English gentry, it’s not so much her what, but rather the derring-do of her how.