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

Take a Ride with Me: The Petersen Museum

License and registration? While it's no fun being pulled over by the cops for speeding, (luckily this hasn't happened to me for a while) it is fun to play one on TV...or in a museum. At the Petersen Automotive Museum in L.A. along the famous Miracle Mile, you can live out all of your car fantasies, including being a cop (or in my case the fashion police) or driving through the country in your Ford Model T or speeding down the track as a race car driver.

As you can see from the pictures above I had a lot of fun in the children's section of the Petersen Museum, but the museum truly has so much more to offer for car lovers and indifferent wives (such as myself) alike. I don't know much about cars, but my husband is, to put it mildly, a car fanatic. Regardless, we both equally enjoyed the museum.

We actually visited the museum last month for a special event celebrating the Ford Mustang's 50th anniversary. My husband has a Mustang and loves the car so we had to check out the festivities and the exhibit to commemorate the anniversary. Below is a picture of the museum's exhibition celebrating the Mustang in all its glory.

The museum's permanent collection takes you on a tour through the history of the automobile by illustrating how cars evolved over each progressing decade. My favorite decade would most certainly be the 1930s, a decade in which cars were truly icons of style and glamor in my opinion, as evident by this mock set up of a Packard dealership below. I can just imagine myself traveling back in time to purchase one of these beauties.

In some of the museum's special exhibits, visitors are given a glimpse into the unique, rare not to mention bizarre world of cars. One exhibit on Town Cars and Chauffeurs featured Liberace's Rolls Royce. (This is where the bizarre comes into play!) It was like a gigantic disco ball threw up on a car. However, I found myself strangely transfixed by its gaudy elegance. I guess it's because I gravitate towards shiny things!

Luckily the exhibit on Town Cars offered some more sophisticated and tasteful cars. They also offered some sage advice for drivers found in a manual for chauffeurs written back in 1906 when there was a real art to the profession.

 I also found myself also enamored with things that are related to cars, but not quite cars, in the museum. Here are just some of the other random things I enjoyed from the museum including a tamale stand in the shape of a pipe smoking dog, a Roy Lichtenstein-esque back drop to futuristic car, and some random artistic photos of the museum that suited my fancy.

I hope you enjoyed this ride through the Petersen Automotive Museum with me. One of the best parts of the museum was a tour given of the museum's vault and its vast collection of cars, which I could not show here because cameras were not allowed due to the fact that they don't want security, entrances and exits to be shown in case someone is planning a heist! I can understand the need for safety and the paranoia because some of the cars that the vault houses are worth tens of millions of dollars. It was fun to be up close to such exquisite cars and also famous ones. For example, Magnum P.I.'s  red Ferrari was down there, as well as cars owned by Elvis and other notable celebrities.

So check out the museum for yourself! It's worth the trip, especially if you know someone who loves cars, or if you are a novice such as myself and want to learn a little more about the topic. But don't speed or dress unfashionably or else officer Katie might give you a ticket (while ridding side-saddle on a motorcycle)!