We think that the story of Cinderella has endured through so many generations because it prepares every woman for that inevitable moment when she realizes she doesn’t have a thing to wear. While our heroine had a handy fairy godmother to help her out, the modern woman now has Rent the Runway, a website that allows members to rent high-end dresses from designers such as Alexander Wang, Badgley Mischka, Diane von Furstenberg, Rebecca Taylor and Yigal Azrouël. Harvard Business School pals Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss started the site last year as a “Netflix for fashion,” says Hyman, “to give women access to the Carrie Bradshaw closet — new trends, aspirational brands — without the guilt of having purchased a dress they’d wear only once.”

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If there’s one man who knows how to make people feel at home at a party it’s Thomas Keller, the superstar chef of French Laundry fame and author of Ad Hoc at Home. At the recent opening night party for Bouchon, his long-anticipated bistro outpost in Beverly Hills, the crowd — a mix of press, friends and celebs, including Jay Leno and Julia Louis-Dreyfus — were purring like kittens at a fish market.

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We love the online sample-sale trend — getting deals on brand-name fashions has never been easier. Now, fans of DailyCandy — which delivers in-the-know tips about food, fashion, trends and more via its website and e-mails — can score bargains with Swirl, Sample Sales by DailyCandy. The site, which had a soft launch last week, offers one sale every 72 hours featuring apparel and accessories from designers such as Alisha Levine, Lauren Merkin, Leigh & Luca, Kier + J. Tod’s and Burberry at up to 80 percent off the retail price. Sales begin at 11 am EST.

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We recently had the pleasure (and pain) of meeting and working out with author and certified trainer Rachel Cosgrove at her Newhall, CA, gym, Results Fitness. Cosgrove’s new book, The Female Body Breakthrough: The Revolutionary Strength-Training Plan for Losing Fat and Getting the Body You Want, advocates pushing yourself — hard — to get a better body. “Most women have been conditioned to train from the point of view of what they can’t do,” says Cosgrove, who doesn’t tolerate any “girlie push-ups” at her facility. (She will, however, let you work up to a full-body push-up by starting partially standing, leaning against a barbell.)

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For part two of our SoCal roundup, we visited a Long Beach getaway with luxurious Latin flair and a brand-new oceanfront resort just 20 miles south of LAX. We can’t wait to go back to both!

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This is the time of year we start craving a change of scenery as the winter doldrums set in. While there will be travels back home for the holidays, that’s not the jolt of novelty that we’re seeking. What we need is a road trip, and fortunately, in Los Angeles, one of the cities we call home, nearby choices abound.

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Years ago, when our grandfather quit smoking, he would habitually reach into his pocket for his phantom cigarettes. At the time, we didn’t realize the difficulty of quitting smoking, but over the years we’ve seen many people close to us struggle to quit tobacco. Since November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, the American Cancer Society encourages the 20.6 percent of Americans who smoke to choose Nov. 19, the Great American Smokeout, as the day to kick the nicotine habit.

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At a book party for the The Inner Game of Stress (Random House. 2009) by W. Timothy Gallwey with Edd Hanzelik, M.D., and John Horton, M.D., we were inspired by the subtitle “outsmart life’s challenges and fulfill your potential.” We posed a scenario to Horton: What if we’ve been health-conscious our whole lives and then as we pass 40 stressful health issues start cropping up? For example, our blood work comes back with borderline-high cholesterol, causing visions of Lipitor prescriptions to dance in our heads? “You have inner resources beyond what you realize,” Horton told us. “You need to learn to tap into your best inner resources, your more evolved self, in order to handle issues of aging and just about anything else.”

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After a recent relocation, we’re rethinking our hefty (and heavy) book collection. We found that our public library card saves valuable bookshelf space — not to mention cash. In fact, according to the 2008 State of America’s Libraries Report from the American Library Association, visits to public libraries and checked-out items are up 10 percent since the last economic downturn in 2001. The report also found that the sluggish economy has led more people to utilize the library’s free activities, Internet access and job-seeking resources. However, while library attendance is up, many of the institutions — including public, school and university libraries — are facing big budget cuts.

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While we love checking out amateur cook-offs, the award-winning recipes are often staggeringly high in calories and fat — especially with the current everything’s-better-with-bacon-trend. So we were pleased to see the CorningWare SimplyLite Recipe Contest calling for lowfat, low-calorie recipes that can be made in CorningWare’s new SimplyLite bakeware collection, which is 50 percent lighter than traditional ceramic dishes.

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