We’ll watch Debra Messing and Anjelica Huston in anything, so we’re especially excited to see them in Smash, the highly anticipated (and heavily promoted) NBC midseason series about the making of a Broadway musical. With a great cast, fabulous musical numbers, irresistible backstage drama, and stellar creative pedigree that boasts Steven Spielberg, Broadway veterans Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, and composer-lyricists Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, this one just might live up to its name when it premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET. (Photo credit: Mark Seliger/NBC)

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When the third season of Project Runway aired, we were pulling for designer Laura Bennett to win the reality TV fashion design competition. Though she lost to edgy L.A. designer Jeffrey Sebelia, we preferred Bennett’s elegant designs and twists on the classic silhouette, and we admired the seemingly effortless style and cool poise always exuded by the mother of six (during the taping, she discovered she was pregnant with child No. 6).

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While we all want to do our part to help preserve the environment, it is often much easier to choose convenience over responsibility, especially when we’re on the go. Even in a city brimming with endless choices like New York, it often requires a bit of legwork to make eco-friendly choices. That’s why we were excited to hear about inBloom, a new location-based iPhone app designed to make it easier to be green.

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The new year is still young, and we’re doing a good job of staying resolute: We’re watching what we eat and trying to be active so we can shed a few pounds. Trouble is, we find exercise works up quite an appetite. And it turns out we don’t even have sweat through a spin or Zumba class to put our appetite into overdrive: Recent research shows that just thinking about exercise can make us hungry.

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We’ve noticed a trend in this year’s crop of diet books — they often have everything to do with sex appeal. Take three new titles: Coach Yourself Thin (Rodale, 2011), Six Weeks to Skinny Jeans (Rodale, 2011) and the least subtle of all, Eat Your Way to Sexy (Harlequin, 2011). The covers show, respectively, a flat-bellied young woman victoriously showing her toned abs, a pair of enviably filled-out “skinny jeans,” and last, but certainly not least, the bold word “SEXY,” the “X” created by a crossed fork and a knife.

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When we interviewed Katie Finneran for the January/February cover of VIVmag last fall, the star of Fox’s I Hate My Teenage Daughter — mother in real life to son Ty, who celebrates his first birthday Feb. 3 — told us that she and her husband, actor Darren Goldstein, hoped to have a second child. Well, she didn’t have to wait for long. She’s pregnant with her second boy, due in June, and she’s thrilled.

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While removing our shoes before yoga class one day, we noticed a poster for the Yoga Freedom Project, created by Off the Mat NYC and the Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) to bring attention throughout the month of January to the issue of sex trafficking. The project culminates with a two-hour yoga class on Jan. 31 at Twelve21, 12 West 21 St. in the Flatiron District, with a lineup of nine of New York City’s top yoga teachers. For those not in New York, we also found ways you can help bring awareness to this important — and often overlooked — global issue. An estimated 27 million people currently are enslaved throughout the world, and one to two million children will be sold into slavery within the next year.

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With New York Restaurant Week in full swing, our thoughts turned to our favorite places to find epicurean feasts for less year-round. We love gourmet food, great chefs — and bargains. Happily, we know how to find them all, from coast to coast, Portland to New York City — and even a gem across the Atlantic, tucked away in a London cookbook shop.

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We know there’s a special mother-daughter bond when one generation passes along kitchen wisdom and beloved family recipes to the next. When Lee Clayton Roper’s mother, Sally Clayton, started to suffer from osteoporosis and memory loss, the two embarked on a project to collect and publish their favorites in A Well-Seasoned Kitchen (MLC Publishing, 2009). Originally available only in the Claytons’ home state of Colorado, the book recently has become available in local bookstores stores across the country, and is also available through online retailers. A portion of all sales benefits the Alzheimer’s Association Colorado Chapter. (Photo credit: Courtesy Lee Clayton Roper)

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As winter takes hold, our thoughts naturally turn to planning a getaway to a destination with warmer temperatures. We recently discovered myTab.co (yes, .co!), a free layaway service that allows us to plan solo or group trips with friends and save money to use for our vacation. This will come in handy when planning an upcoming girls’ getaway to escape our winter blahs!

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