Lifestyle
PHOTOS: How 9 families cope when they can't afford 3 healthy meals a day for the kids
Toyin Salami of Lagos, Nigeria, with her 4-year-old daughter, Kudirat. Her husband, Saheed, tends to two of their other children. “It’s hard to get food, let alone nutritious food,” she says.
Sope Adelaja for NPR
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Sope Adelaja for NPR
A mother in Nigeria pretends to cook food in a pot of water to calm her hungry children. In Houston, another mom can’t get to the food bank because the family’s car was flooded by Hurricane Beryl in July. A dad in India says, “Every day, from dawn to dusk, the one thought that floods my heart and mind is that the kids shouldn’t ever go to sleep hungry. I’m painfully aware of how we’re falling short.”
One in four children under age 5 worldwide is unable to access a nutritious diet, according to a report by UNICEF. That adds up to 181 million young children in a state of what the U.N. agency calls “severe child food poverty.”
Rising food prices are part of the problem, found the report, which compiled data from 137 low- and middle-income countries. So are conflicts, climate crises, harmful food-marketing strategies and disruptions in food supply.
Low-income countries have a hard time regulating aggressive advertising of processed snack foods, experts told NPR. As a result, even when families have the opportunity to eat well, many children end up eating unhealthy foods that are cheaper than nutrient-rich options.
Child food poverty is particularly harmful in early childhood — threatening survival, physical growth and cognitive development, according to UNICEF.
“We know that these children don’t do well at school,” says Harriet Torlesse, the report’s lead author and a nutrition specialist at UNICEF, who spoke to NPR after the report came out earlier this year. “They earn less income as adults, and they struggle to escape from income poverty. So not only do they suffer throughout the course of their life — their children, too, are likely to suffer from malnutrition.”
Adding to the urgency, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which is a sponsor of NPR and this blog) issued a report in September called “The Race to Nourish a Warming World,” urging world leaders to increase global health spending to boost children’s health and nutrition.
What’s it like to raise young children when there’s not enough nutritious food to eat? NPR enlisted photographers in nine cities around the globe, most of them from The Everyday Projects, to capture images and reflections from families struggling to get three healthy meals on the table each day.
Toyin Salami works as a house cleaner, sweeping compounds. Her husband, Saheed, is a bricklayer. When they have food, a typical breakfast for their four children is pap (a fermented cereal pudding made from corn).
Sope Adelaja for NPR
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Sope Adelaja for NPR
LAGOS, NIGERIA
“They’re not growing properly because they’re not eating well”
When there’s no food to eat and no money or credit to buy groceries, Toyin Salami puts a pot of water on the stove and pretends to cook. The activity distracts her four children — ages 15, 12, 7 and 4 — and calms them with the hope that food is coming. Eventually, they fall asleep.
“It’s hard to get food, let alone nutritious food,” says Salami, 41, who lives with her family in Alimosho, a community in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. “Things are really tough. People even tell me that my kids should be bigger by now, but they’re not growing properly because they’re not eating well.”
Toyin works as a house cleaner, sweeping compounds. Her husband, Saheed, is a bricklayer. When they have food, a typical breakfast is pap (a fermented cereal pudding made from corn). In the afternoon, they drink garri (a beverage made with fried grated-cassava flour and water). In the evening, they have eba (a stiff dough made by soaking garri flour in hot water and kneading it with a wooden spoon) — or just a serving of the liquid form of garri again. An uncle used to bring them occasional treats, but he died.
Saheed Salami serves pap to two of his four children for a meal.
Sope Adelaja for NPR
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Sope Adelaja for NPR
When money runs out, the family buys food on credit. But if they haven’t repaid their previous debt, they go to bed hungry. Toyin hopes that one day she and her husband can find better jobs or find people to help them so that their children can grow well and have the foods they ask for.
Photos and text by Sope Adelaja
HOUSTON, TEXAS
“Enough for rent but not for food”
Emilia Lopez hands her 2-year-old son, Jose, a bowl of eggs while he plays on the living room couch of their apartment in Houston. A caretaker to seven children — five of her own, plus two from other family members — Lopez relies on donations from churches and food banks to feed them all.
Danielle Villasana for NPR/
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Danielle Villasana for NPR/
Although Emilia Lopez’s husband has worked in construction continuously since the day they arrived in the United States from Honduras six years ago, it’s not enough to cover their monthly expenses for a family of nine.
“There are times when we have enough for rent but not for food,” says Lopez, who relies on government programs that provide funds to purchase food and also on donations from food banks and churches to supply most of the groceries for her family, which includes five of her own children (two of whom are under age 5), a 17-year-old cousin from Honduras and another child she’s taking care of for a family member.
Lopez lives in Houston, where having a car makes it a lot easier to get food. But the family’s car was flooded by Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm that struck in July. “If you don’t have someone you know or transportation, you can’t get around,” Lopez says. “The churches and food banks are far.”
Left: Emilia Lopez (left), 30, and her cousin Angie Ferrera, 17, cook in the kitchen of their Houston apartment. Lopez says she cooks meals like stir-fried rice to stretch meat and vegetables. Right: A bowl of rice with cheese that Ferrera prepared. Lopez told her cousin that she shouldn’t eat just rice and cheese.
Danielle Villasana for NPR
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Danielle Villasana for NPR
The hurricane also left Lopez’s family without power for days. What little food they had spoiled. In her home country of Honduras, Lopez says there are neighbors everywhere willing to lend a helping hand. “There are doors” in the United States, she says, “but no neighbors, no friends.”
When she has transportation, Lopez visits donation centers once or twice a week to get food. She also buys food using the government aid she receives. But even when she gets two dozen eggs, she says, they’re soon gone.
Emilia Lopez’s 12-year-old daughter looks into the family’s refrigerator. For occasional treats, Lopez uses the government aid she receives to buy ice cream and chips. Most of the time, however, she makes it a priority to purchase essential items.
Danielle Villasana for NPR/
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Danielle Villasana for NPR/
With the food they have, Lopez cooks dishes that stretch, such as stir-fried rice with shrimp and canned peas. Her youngest children — Jose, 2, and Aaron, 4 — love instant noodle soup, formula (which they still like) and baleadas, a traditional Honduran food consisting of a large flour tortilla filled with ingredients such as beans, cheese and meat.
For occasional treats, Lopez uses the government aid she receives to buy ice cream and chips. Most of the time, however, she makes it a priority to purchase essential items. “The most important thing,” she says, “is what they need.”
Photos and reporting by Danielle Villasana
VELLORE, INDIA
“The kids shouldn’t ever go to sleep hungry”
Srinivasan, 30, works in a juice shop on the sprawling campus of the Vellore Institute of Technology, one of the city’s largest universities. For a full day of work, he earns a wage of 300 rupees ($3.58), typical for laborers in India.
Lakshmi feeds lunch to her 4-year-old daughter, Sakshi: a flatbread made with millet, beans and curry leaves, along with a serving of coconut chutney.
Viraj Nayar for NPR
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Viraj Nayar for NPR
Although he makes juice for students all day, Srinivasan says, he can rarely afford to buy fresh juice or fruit for his own kids — 5-year-old son Darshan and daughter Sakshi, 4.
“Every day, from dawn to dusk, the one thought that floods my heart and mind is that the kids shouldn’t ever go to sleep hungry,” says Srinivasan. “No matter what happens to us, their nutrition and their education have been our priority. They have dictated all our choices. And even then, I’m painfully aware of how we’re falling short.”
Inflation has risen in India in recent years, and food prices have gone up at an even faster rate, with food inflation at 9.55% in June, double the 4.55% rate from a year before.
Srinivasan and his wife, Lakshmi, 27, who go by only one name, have rearranged their lives to feed their children. In August, they moved into a smaller home to save money on rent. To supplement their diet, they — along with 9 million other families in Tamil Nadu state — are taking part in the government’s free rations program, where monthly supplies of rice, beans and sugar are free for low-income families.
Even with help from the government subsidy, Srinivasan uses a third of his salary to pay for food. On some days, like during heavy rainfalls in the monsoon season, he cannot make it to work, and the family can’t buy food. Lakshmi tries to get odd jobs cleaning people’s homes for 100 rupees ($1.19) a day when the children are at school, but that’s not regular work.
Lakshmi buys bananas for her daughter from a roadside vendor — a once-a-month treat. All fruits are expensive and beyond the family’s reach on most days. But bananas, which are plentiful in India, are more affordable than the rest.
Viraj Nayar for NPR
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Viraj Nayar for NPR
They don’t own a refrigerator, so Lakshmi buys produce in nearby stores early in the mornings and tries to cook enough for the day. She can afford vegetables about once every three days.
Typical meals for the family include idlis (fermented rice cakes) with sambar (a thin lentil gravy); roti (flatbread) made of ragi (millet) mixed with green beans; or green moong dal (a mung bean dish) with chutney. Chicken is a once-a-month treat. So are fruits, like apples, grapes and bananas, which they buy from roadside vendors depending on what’s cheapest.
On school days, the children take a packed lunch. For dinner, they eat what is left over from the food cooked in the morning. Sometimes it’s not enough for all of them, so Lakshmi and Srinivasan feed the kids and go to bed hungry.
When they go shopping as a family every Sunday, the kids beg for chocolates and cookies. “In school, they see their friends bring in those treats, but we just can’t afford to buy them,” says Lakshmi. It’s heartbreaking to keep saying no, she says, so sometimes they buy a chocolate that costs 1 rupee — less than 1 cent.
Srinivasan, Lakshmi and their children, Darshan, 5, and Sakshi, 4, eat a lunch of millet, a nutritious grain, and a serving of coconut chutney. In their tiny home, they sit on the floor of a room that serves as a bedroom, living room and dining room.
Viraj Nayar for NPR
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Viraj Nayar for NPR
Srinivasan goes to work even on Sundays to make ends meet, and sometimes, he skips meals. He gets stomach pains as a result and he loses wages if he can’t go to work when he’s sick, says Lakshmi. That’s why she took on part-time work.
“We’ve learned that putting food on our plates for a growing family isn’t easy,” she says. “It involves skimping, saving and sacrifice.”
Text by Kamala Thiagarajan. Photos by Viraj Nayar.
QUITO, ECUADOR
“The hardest question: ‘Mom, where’s the ham?’”
On tough days, Karen Sanabria’s family skips breakfast and eats a lunch of rice with egg around 3 or 4 p.m. For dinner, it’s just a little bread or tea.
Sanabria, 25, always tries to save some flour to make arepas for her son, Joshua, who is 3 and still breastfeeding. “I make a few, and if he’s still hungry, I only have the option of giving him juice to fill him up,” she says.
Originally from Venezuela, Sanabria lives in Quito, Ecuador, with her husband, Édgar Fustacaras, 38, their son and Sanabria’s father, sister and brother-in-law.
Édgar, who currently drives for Uber, has held sporadic jobs that don’t always pay enough or on time. Rent for the family’s apartment costs $120 a month, and if wages haven’t arrived when rent is due, that can leave them short on money for groceries. If they buy groceries first, they can end up struggling to cover their other expenses.
Karen Sanabria and her son, Joshua Kaed, at the patio entrance of their apartment. She always strives to play with her son.
Yolanda Escobar Jiménez for NPR
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Yolanda Escobar Jiménez for NPR
Sanabria works odd jobs when she can to pay for chicken and other meats. The family buys food to last a week, but by the end of the week they start worrying about where they’ll find the money for the next grocery purchase.
Providing three healthy meals every day is a challenge, and they end up going without shampoo and other toiletries. “Sometimes I need deodorant,” Sanabria says, “but if that money can buy us a pound of potatoes, I’ll buy the potatoes instead.”
When supplies are scarce, Joshua’s cravings peak. “‘Mom, I want an arepa. Mom, I want chicken. Mom, I want meat. Mom, I want chicken and rice. Mom, where’s the ham?’” Sanabria says. “I think that’s the hardest question I’ve ever been asked in my life: ‘Mom, where’s the ham?’”
It’s hard to tell Joshua there’s nothing to eat, Sanabria says. In response to his complaints for food, she sometimes changes the subject or stays quiet. Sometimes she goes to the bathroom to cry. Other times, she gets creative, especially with arepas, a staple food made from flour.
Sanabria and Joshua in their kitchen. She knows that a diet based on flour isn’t healthy, but that’s what they can mainly afford: arepas (a flatbread made from ground corn) in the morning, for lunch and at night.
Yolanda Escobar Jiménez for NPR
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Yolanda Escobar Jiménez for NPR
“I make heart-shaped arepas, star-shaped ones, doll-shaped ones, different shapes, and he forgets all he’s been asking for,” she says. “He says, ‘Mom, you saved the day.’ At that moment, I feel like a superhero mom who works miracles.”
All that flour has a downside: The family has experienced weight gain, anemia and infection from an unbalanced diet. “I know it’s not healthy to eat flour all the time, but it’s what we have,” Sanabria says. “The doctor always tells me, ‘Give him more chicken. Give him more meat.’ And I say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have that.’”
Photos and text by Yolanda Escobar Jiménez
ORANG ASLI SG BULOH, MALAYSIA
“The worry of not being able to feed your children properly is something that never leaves you”
To feed her family, Rosnah has always depended on foraging for fiddlehead ferns and other wild plants in the jungle near her home in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. With increasing deforestation, however, finding edible plants has become difficult.
Rosnah, 48, eats with her son, Daniel, 5, after she has cooked an afternoon meal for her family in Orang Asli Sg Buloh, in Malaysia’s Selangor state. “As a mother, I always try to put my children first, even if it means I have to go without,” she says.
Annice Lyn for NPR
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Annice Lyn for NPR
“I use to be able to gather enough for my family,” says Rosnah, 48. “But now, sometimes we come back with almost nothing.” She and her husband asked that their last names not be used so they could freely discuss their economic struggles.
Rosnah lives with her husband, Roslan, 39, and their children, Daniel, 5, and Hellizriana, 14. Two older children from Rosnah’s previous marriage and a 5-year-old grandson, Qayyum, live nearby.
Roslan is a plantation worker and Rosnah works at a plant nursery, but their wages don’t go far. Food prices have risen and transportation costs are high, making it hard to get from their isolated village to markets to buy fresh food. What’s available and affordable is usually not very nutritious.
Most days, the family’s meals are simple. On a typical morning, breakfast is bread or biscuits and black tea. For lunch and dinner, they eat rice with some greens and salt. Maybe once a week or on special occasions, they cook one of their chickens, usually on a Sunday. Sometimes, there is an egg or small piece of fish. When the family has extra money, they buy something special, such as chocolate, candy, bubble milk tea or KFC.
A view of the family’s open fridge as Rosnah’s grandson, Qayyum, 5, eats his chocolate waffle biscuit treat. When the family has extra money, they buy something special, such as chocolate, candy, bubble milk tea or KFC.
Annice Lyn for NPR
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Annice Lyn for NPR
It’s never enough, especially for Daniel. Rosnah says she often skips meals or takes a smaller portion so that the children can eat. When she can’t sleep from the hunger, she makes plain rice porridge with a little salt.
“As a mother, I always try to put my children first, even if it means I have to go without,” she says. “The worry of not being able to feed your children properly is something that never leaves you.”
Photos and text by Annice Lyn
GREENVILLE, MISSISSIPPI
“They harvest the crops, and they’re taken to other places”
Caitlyn Kelly’s three kids like to eat watermelon, strawberries, mangoes and avocados. But she can only afford to serve fresh fruits and vegetables as treats because they cost too much to have every day.
Caitlyn Kelly serves spaghetti and meat sauce to her children, Logan White (center), 6, and Annadale Norris, 10, in Greenville, Mississippi. Fruits and vegetables are hard to afford, she says.
Rory Doyle for NPR
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Rory Doyle for NPR
Instead, she tries to make large meals that she can stretch for a couple of days using ingredients such as spaghetti, chicken, rice and, when she has enough money for them, frozen vegetables. She says she goes for frozen veggies because they are easier to store and keep for multiple meals, while the fresh ones are more expensive and don’t last as long.
“My kids actually like fruits and vegetables, but it’s pretty difficult financially,” says Kelly, 33, who lives in Greenville, Miss., a city in the heart of the rural Mississippi Delta. “A lot of the healthier fresh foods cost more, and you typically only get one meal out of them.”
A single mom, Kelly lives with her 6-year-old and 10-year-old. She splits custody of her 1-year-old with the child’s father, who lives four hours away. To earn money, she works at a store that sells food and beverages enriched with vitamins and other nutrients. She works a second job in the afternoons at a flower shop.
For breakfast, she often makes bacon, eggs or microwavable sausage biscuits. Her older two children qualify for free school lunches because of her low income. Sometimes, she skips lunch so her kids don’t have to miss meals. “It’s easier for me to go without,” she says.
Caitlyn Kelly poses for a portrait with her two oldest children, Annadale Norris, age 10 (left), and Logan White, age 6. A single mom, she says she sometimes skips lunch so she can afford to feed her family. “It’s easier for me to go without,” she says.
Rory Doyle for NPR
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Rory Doyle for NPR
One of the ironies of living in the fertile Mississippi Delta, Kelly says, is that agriculture is a major industry in the region, but her family can’t access much edible produce.
“You walk outside your house and see all of these crops growing, but I know that most of these things don’t stay here in the Delta,” she says. “They harvest the crops, and they’re taken to other places.”
Photos and text by Rory Doyle
BUJUMBURA, BURUNDI
“My children eat two meals a day”
On a Friday morning in July, Jeannette Uwimbabazi went to her greengrocer for a kilogram of beans, some matoke bananas, oranges and a few tomatoes to cook for her husband and three children, ages 5, 4 and 2. She promised the vendor she would pay at the end of the month when she gets paid for her job as a child care provider.
Jeannette Uwimbabazi, 40, of Bujumbura, Burundi, feeds her children beans and green bananas that she has cooked for them. As food prices have risen, the family decided to skip breakfast for the kids.
Esther N’sapu for NPR
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Esther N’sapu for NPR
Uwimbabazi’s family lives in Bujumbura, Burundi, where food prices have been on the rise, in part because of fuel shortages that have made it more expensive to transport supplies. In one month, the price of a kilogram of beans rose from 3,000 Burundian francs (about $1.04) to 3,500 Burundian francs ($1.21).
But as a child care provider, Uwimbabazi’s wages have stayed the same. Each month, she earns 350,000 Burundian francs ($120 as of mid-September). Her husband is a sociologist by training but has no job at the moment. The money she makes must cover food as well as medical care, school fees and other expenses.
“Since the rise in food prices, my children eat two meals a day — at lunchtime and in the evening,” says Uwimbabazi, 40. “My husband and I only eat in the evening. We’ve done away with breakfast to save money.”
Jeannette Uwimbabazi buys food for her children at the market. “Since the rise in food prices, my children eat two meals a day — at lunchtime and in the evening,” she says.
Esther N’sapu for NPR
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Esther N’sapu for NPR
Skipping breakfast is difficult for the children, Uwimbabazi says. Her youngest child cries when he’s hungry. To calm him down, Uwimbabazi gives him leftover food from the previous evening if there is any.
She grows sweet potato plants, known as matembele, in a small garden in front of the family’s house, harvesting the nutritious leaves to supplement the family’s diet.
It’s hard when her children see other kids eating biscuits or ice cream on their way out of church and ask her to buy them some, she says. She makes excuses for why they can’t have any, and they cry all the way home.
For the future, Uwimbabazi has a dream: She wants to start a clothing business to earn a better living.
Photos and text by Esther N’sapu
Tomás, who is 2, snacks on puffed rice cereal while his parents cook a meal.
Alejandra Leyva for NPR
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Alejandra Leyva for NPR
GUADALAJARA, MEXICO
They work in the food industry while worrying about food at home
To fund his university studies and goal of becoming a biologist, Alberto Isaac Maldonado Lozano works two jobs — as a cook and as a delivery driver for Uber and Rappi. His wife, Esmeralda Guadalupe López López, also works as a cook in one of the new restaurants in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Son Tomás shares fruit that mom and dad purchased at the stalls on Zaragoza Street in the central area of Guadalajara. On their shopping excursion, they also bought enough meat to last for four days. They spent $27.
Alejandra Leyva for NPR
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Alejandra Leyva for NPR
The city boasts a growing economy and good quality of life. But the couple has to make compromises to provide healthy food for their own children — Ámbar, 9, and Tomás, 2.
The couple knows all too well the irony of working in the food industry while worrying about food at home. At $8 or $9, the cost of a dish in the restaurants where they work is their budget to feed the whole family for a day.
To make sure the kids are eating well, they make sacrifices in their own meals. They get enough to eat, Maldonado says, but can’t eat what they want, like beef and fish. To save money for food, they have also suspended their internet service at home and limit recreational outings.
And they send Tomás to a government-subsidized day care center, where he gets two or three free meals each day. Even when López takes a day off, she sends Tomás to day care. “I know that he will have adequate nutrition, which is difficult for us on many occasions,” she says.
Here’s a meal that Tomás got at the government-subsidized day care he attends — a way for the family to reduce food expenses and make sure he has a healthy diet. The tray includes rice, egg, papaya and a protein.
Alejandra Leyva for NPR
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Alejandra Leyva for NPR
The family shops for food every third or fourth day at a store downtown where prices are cheap but quality is low. They try to prioritize nutritious food like fruit, baby formula and yogurt.
“The hardest part of not providing an ideal meal for your family is knowing that you are not giving them the food they need,” the dad says.
Photos and text by Alejandra Leyva
JABALIA, GAZA
“Mama, please can you get me chicken?”
In the shelter where her family stayed this summer, Suad Ali Al-Nidr cooks mulukhiyah, a soup made from jute leaves, for her kids. “This is the first time we are having mulukhiyah since the war began,” Al-Nidr says. “I could only make it because a friend of mine is growing it in her home and gave some to me” because she knew how much Al-Nidr was struggling to feed her family.
Mahmoud Rehan for NPR
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Mahmoud Rehan for NPR
Suad Ali Al-Nidr’s children often look at old photos on her phone. They see themselves eating shawarma wraps and chocolates. Then they beg her for food.
“Mama, please can you get me chicken?” asks her 4-year-old daughter, Maysoon.
Al-Nidr, 28, is sheltering with her two children and her father at a U.N. school in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Displaced by Israel’s war with Hamas, they sleep in a classroom with 35 people.
Across the Gaza Strip, families are struggling to find food to eat. Nutritious food — including protein — is hard to come by. According to the United Nations, at least 34 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in October 2023 and more than 50,000 require urgent treatment.
Al-Nidr and her family have had to move so many times since the war began that she struggles to remember all the places where they have sought shelter. In February, her husband heard about an aid convoy coming through Gaza City. He went, hoping to get food for the family. As thousands of desperate people gathered, a stampede ensued; Israeli troops opened fire. More than 100 people died, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Al-Nidr’s husband survived but was unable to return home. Israeli forces blocked roads, forcing hundreds to head to southern Gaza. Since then, he has been living in the south. He and his wife try to keep in touch by phone, but he is unable to support his family so Al-Nidr has been taking care of the children on her own.
One day in July, Al-Nidr cooked mulukhiyah, a soup made from jute leaves, for her kids. It’s a popular dish across the Arab world.
“This is the first time we are having mulukhiyah since the war began,” Al-Nidr said. “I could only make it because a friend of mine is growing it in her home and gave some to me.”
She tried to cajole Maysoon into eating a bowl. But Maysoon doesn’t have a lot of appetite these days. She and her twin sister are so weak from hunger, says Al-Nidr, that they lay around most days, unable to play or stand up for very long.
Like many families in Gaza, Al-Nidr and her children have not received humanitarian aid. But she has another thing to worry about: Maysoon is severely allergic to wheat, making their options even more limited.
“I wish I could get a can of tuna or some eggs, anything with protein to give my kids, but when they are available, they are too expensive, and it’s impossible to find any fruits or vegetables,” she says. “We can only afford to eat one meal a day, and usually it’s some hummus or beans, or weeds that we boil in water.”
Suad Ali Al-Nidr serves dinner to her two daughters, her father and her nephew. Her daughter Maysoon (center) has a severe wheat allergy, but most of the time, bread is the only thing they can find to eat.
Mahmoud Rehan for NPR
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Mahmoud Rehan for NPR
If aid doesn’t come? She is quiet for a long time, and then her voice wobbles.
“I don’t know what I will do.”
Text by Fatma Tanis. Photos by Mahmoud Rehan.
Credits: Visuals editor, Ben de la Cruz. Text editor, Marc Silver. Copy editor, Preeti Aroon. This project was done in collaboration with The Everyday Projects, a global community of photographers using images to challenge harmful stereotypes.
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
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Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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