Picnic at the Autry Museum

The last time I was at the Autry Museum, which is dedicated to the history of the American West, was during my college days. In college I volunteered for a mentoring program for children which included taking them on weekend excursions to local museums and cultural landmarks such as the Autry. Although the experience is a bit fuzzy in my mind (it was over 10 years ago after all!) I remember enjoying the exhibits and the picnic we all had outside after touring the museum.

Well today was much like that day 10 years ago. Upon hearing about a recent exhibit on Route 66 at the Autry, I organized another excursion to the museum, but this time for just my husband and me. I tried to look up a local restaurant that we could go to beforehand, but with little luck. We both remembered from previous visits that there were picnic tables and benches outside of the museum, so we had the bright idea to pack a lunch and eat outside on a gorgeous day like today when the weather isn't too hot and there's a hint of breeze in the air. So we packed a picnic basket with sandwiches and snacks and off we went!

Above you will see some pictures of my picnic attire. I thought it would be a nice day to wear sort of a "casual dress" although my husband claimed that it was fancy. I thought pairing it with a shirt underneath made it a little more casual. I also thought that my Lucie slingbacks looked somewhat like a picnic table, although a very colorful one!

So as I said, we came to the museum primarily for the Route 66 show. It was filled with treasures from the mother road, including some literary artifacts which were right up my alley. These included the long scroll of paper that Jack Kerouac used to write On the Road as a single paragraph and some manuscripts of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. In addition to this exhibit the museum features as part of its permanent collection odds and ends from Western movies, cowboys, gamblers, gunfighters and Native Americans and anything else Western.

Above you will see a picture looking out from the museum onto the L.A. Zoo. I would love to see the L.A. Zoo sometime, but we didn't have time for it today. Plus we had to get home before the traffic in L.A. picked up too much. Wouldn't life just be easier if it was like the old west and we were still riding horses around everywhere? Well, but then I would have to ride side saddle, which is a major inconvenience when you have a dress on!

Dress: Nordstrom's Rack 

Shoes: J. Crew Lucie Slingbacks in Grape

Shirt: H&M

Bag: Dooney and Bourke

Love Punk Floral

With certain prints and patterns it's just love at first sight. This was certainly the way I felt about last spring's Punk Floral print from J. Crew. I thought just one item would be enough in this pattern, but when the J. Crew Factory came out with their reissue I knew I was going to have to go back for more.

A few weeks ago I picked up the Punk Floral Skimmer pants from the J. Crew Factory. They were discounted to a little under $20 and I thought that adding some more loud and crazy pants to my wardrobe might be, well, fun. While these pants may not be as decadent and gorgeous as the wool/silk blend ones offered last year at the "regular" J. Crew, they are a nice lightweight cotton and perfect for summer.

I also picked up this "love" tee from The Factory. It is quite educational, as it teaches one to say love in many languages. Who says you can't learn in the summer?

Pants: Factory Printed Skimmer Pants in Emerald Pool aka Punk Floral here

Tee: J. Crew Factory "Love" Collector Tee here

Shoes: kate spade

Bag: LV Alma in Citron 

Glasses: Chanel

BBQ and Summer Whites

I don't think I'll ever be one of those women who can just wear all white; I always have to have a few pops of color somewhere in my outfit. Today I wore mostly white save for the gigantic slice of citrus on my shirt, my neon green belt and yellow clutch.

Well, white (or mostly white) probably wasn't the best choice to wear to a BBQ joint for ribs. BBQ sauce and white don't make for a good combo as any country singer will tell you. But I was just dying to wear my new diamond cotton eyelet skirt from LOFT somewhere summery. Also, I didn't have ribs for lunch, rather I had a fried chicken sandwich and mac n' cheese which was decidedly less of a BBQ sauce blood bath in comparison to my husband's full rack of ribs.

If you follow my blog you probably know by now that I like to "theme out" all of my outfits. Somehow I am always able to match what I am doing and where I am going to my wardrobe. The fact that my shirt just happens to match the tablecloths at the restaurant I swear was an accident. This was my first time going to this particular restaurant and the orange themed table clothes were just a cosmic coincidence!

Skirt: LOFT Diamond Cotton Eyelet Skirt here

Shirt: H&M Linen Blend Tee similar, but with a banana here

Belt: J. Crew

Clutch: J. Crew Vero Clutch in Citrus 

Shoes: J. Crew Lilian Wedges in Mirror/Silver

Sunglasses: Prada Braque Sunglasses

Katie Cooks: Tiki Appetizers

In celebration of my husband's birthday and the unofficial beginning of summer, I decided to throw a Tiki themed party. The dilemma I faced was what to serve at such a party. The drink choice was obvious: Mai Tais served with those cute little paper umbrellas. Although the beverage selection was a cinch to figure out, what to serve for food was a bit more of a challenge. An Internet search on the topic didn't yield much in the way of recipes, but I did successfully try these two recipes for quick, simple and fun appetizer to serve at your next Tiki summer party. (Just in case one is coming up in the near future for you!)

The first recipe I tried was shrimp lettuce cups. Believe it or not I obtained this recipe from Party City. (You know the decoration store?) It amazes me that they are now providing customers with culinary advice, but the recipe turned out pretty well. I don't eat shrimp, so I had a vegetarian version, but I heard they were tasty. Basically it consists of marinated grilled shrimp laid in a bed of fruit salsa and garnished with cucumber, green onion and carrots.  The complete recipe can be found here.

To make this recipe first you marinade the shrimp for at least 15 minutes using the following ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

While the shrimp are chilling in their marinade you have to cut a whole bunch of stuff for the fruit salsa and garnish. First make the fruit salsa which is comprised of:

• 1 cup diced mango
• 1 cup diced papaya (I used pineapple instead since I had a bunch of it)
• 1/2 cup diced kiwi
• Pinch of chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt, or to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper

Combine all of the ingredients together and set aside in the fridge while you grill up the shrimp. The last step is to take your shrimp and grill them. After shrimp are cooked, take the leaves of a head of iceberg lettuce to use as "cups". Scoop a small portion of the fruit salsa into the bottom, arrange the shrimp over the salsa, and garnish with julienned carrot, cucumber and green onion.

I also made bacon wrapped pineapple. This was ridiculously easy, and as you can imagine anything with crispy bacon is also ridiculously tasty. You will need:

• 1 pound Bacon
• 1 can Chunked Pineapple (large Chunks)
• ½ cups Brown Sugar

First preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Next get large chunks of pineapple. (I used fresh, but you can save some time buying canned.) Wrap each pineapple chunk with half a slice of bacon. I dredge the bacon through the brown sugar first for added sweetness. Last of all,  put the bacon/pineapple chunks on a skewer and then place the skewers on a cookie cooling rack on a foil lined baking sheet (so that the drippings can gather and not cause a mess that your husband will inevitably clean up).

These will cook for about 25 minutes. After 25 minutes I turned the broiler on to get a little added crispness to the bacon. When you are done you will have yummy chunks of pineapple wrapped in crisp, delicious bacon. These were also a real hit!

As a side note, you might enjoy the fact that William got dressed up for the Tiki party. Below you will see him donning a grass skirt and Hawaiian lei. He even was able to sneak a few of the appetizers too!

A Lazy Day in the Park: The Basset Olympics

Perhaps you watched the Belmont Stakes yesterday. It certainly was exciting to watch California Chrome go for the Triple Crown. But did you know that there was also another even more exciting sporting event involving furry four-legged creatures going on around the same time? Just a little down the street from the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California, where California Chrome won a few races, the Basset Hound Spring Games (or as I call it, the Basset Hound Olympics) takes place annually every spring. The event, which includes many Basset Hound festivities and games, is held to raise money for homeless Basset Hounds of Southern California. Huell Howser even covered the games on one episode of California's Gold, and despite the fact that I am not a Basset Hound owner, I somehow end up going every year to watch the pageantry of Bassets competing in events like best howl, most drool, "swimming", obstacle courses and more.

I actually have a few Basset related articles of clothing, including this button down from Tommy Hilfiger. It features embroidered pink Bassets sniffing around all over, so figured it would be perfect to wear to the Basset Spring Games. Plus you can wash it, which is good since Bassets drool a lot!

So enough with the Basset inspired fashion. Below you will see some of the pictures from the Basset Hound Spring Games/Olympics. It is quite the fun event if you're a Basset lover or just a dog lover.

I've always thought people should go back to wearing more hats; it's just so glamorous. These hounds certainly have the right idea!

There were some vendors selling Basset themed items, including the above signs.

Yummy food is also sold to raise money for the hounds. I had the Caprese sandwich and it was delicious. My husband had a hot dog.

Here is a Basset obstacle course, which proved to be quite the challenge for most of the hounds present. William, my English Springer Spaniel, would make short work of this. In fact, he has taken a few doggy agility classes as he's quite the natural athlete. 

Basset trying to get up a ramp.

Basset that eventually made it to the top of the ramp.

This Basset is contemplating if he should go in the pool or not. Perhaps he is afraid to get his cowboy hat wet? I don't blame him, fashion should always be one's first priority!

My favorite of the competitions was the drool contest. Basically, they put a piece of colored construction paper under each Basset's mouth and let them salivate over treats for 90 seconds. The Basset who makes the biggest mess is the winner. Above are two of the finalists. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed these lovable hounds as much as I did. William was not happy when I came home smelling of other dogs, but I think he'll get over it. It was hard to resist playing with, petting and fawning over these lovable Bassets!

Minty Neon

Last month I placed an order for some clearance items at the J. Crew Factory. Little did I know that each item would come in its own separate package, on its own separate day. It looked like I ordered a lot more than I did when package after package arrived at our doorstep. Among the storm of packages was this sweatshirt in a minty color and this embroidered floral skirt. 

Although they may have arrived separately, I thought these two pieces looked great together, with just a little extra neon bling from my J. Crew color mix necklace from last summer. If you look closely you will notice that even my finger nails are in on the mint action. This mint color "Mint Candy Apple " from Essie is one of my favorite colors to use for summer. Anyway, to put it briefly, it was quite the neon and mint mash-up! 

These photos were actually outside our polling location for yesterday's  Californian primary election. (I'm always on the look out for a pretty place for pictures!) The cactus was plentiful, but the cookies were not. You see, they always provide fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies where we vote, but this year there were none, so that was a major bummer! Luckily the bright colors in my skirt brightened my mood.

Skirt: J. Crew Factory Embroidered Skirt here

Sweatshirt: J. Crew Factory Short-Sleeve Pocket Sweatshirt here

Shoes: Nine West

Necklace: J. Crew Color Mix Statement Necklace

Bag: J. Crew Factory Vero Clutch 

Me, Marimekko and New York

This outfit raises so many questions: is $80 too much to pay for a cotton skirt? Should t-shirts be tucked in or out? Is New York better than LA? Let me address each in its respective order.

First, unless you are living under a rock you probably know that last week Banana Republic released its collaboration with Marimekko. After catching wind of how quickly pieces were flying off the shelves from the collection I ventured to my nearest BR only to find four pieces left. Luckily, one was what I came in for: the Kivet print full skirt. I convinced my husband, despite his protests that the skirt looks like ones I already own, that I needed it. When we got to the register we were dismayed to find out that the Marimekko collection was excluded from the extra 40% off promo. My husband seemed to think that this would be enough to discourage me from purchasing it, as it was "just a cotton skirt", but he thought wrong. I couldn't pass up the skirt only to watch it sell on eBay for double the price. I sort of see it as investing in a piece of art, or at least that's what I tell myself!

I also recently purchased this NYLA Art Deco tee from Madewell. I really like the font of the letters, and of course I have ties to both cities, so it was a no brainier to buy it at a deeply discounted price. The only thing I don't like about it is this: The graphic takes up the whole shirt, so you feel like you can't tuck it in.  Before leaving the house I couldn't decide which look I like better, so I photographed myself both both tucked in and out in case you were wondering why there is a continuity error.

Last of all, the age old New York vs. LA debate. I've lived in both cities. It was always my dream growing up to live in the "Big Apple" and when that dream came true it was everything I could hope for, even the less glamorous parts like seeing rats in subway stations. After living out here in LA for the last 10 years, I will have to say that my heart has warmed to the city. In fact, I've made somewhat of a hobby out of discovering the hidden (and not so hidden) gems that LA has to offer. So I guess it's a toss up. If you look closely I did play up the New York theme of my tee shirt by wearing my Kate Spade Taxi flats.

Skirt: Banana Republic x Marimekko Kivet Full Skirt 

Tee: Madewell NYLA Art Deco here

Shoes: kate spade taxi flats

Bag: Vince Camuto Louise Clutch

Watch: Dubey & Schaldenbrand