NAVY & NUDE.

clutch  /  navy polish*  /  peach polish  /  hasbeens

can't get enough.  and that navy polish is passport blue ... in case it doesn't pop up as such.  by far the best navy polish i've ever had.  though i'm not gonna say it's the best quality, just the best color.

the weekend.

it was only a little bit warm, not quite wanna kill yourself hot.  there was a lot of walking.  to the farmers market and back. with a bag full of cherries! that ended up on my shorts.  which was kind of ok since they were already pink.

there was soba with sesame and veggies and rice vinegar and a sixpoint apollo, my most favorite summer beer.

there was walking to the park, sitting, snoozing, reading.

there was a pizza made of leftover dough covered in garlic scapes and zucchini and garlic.

there was the cutest little guy in the the corner of a sidewalk square.

there was also the wearing of my bensimons, which hasn't actually occurred in a very long time.  i think i've decided to get rid of them.  though i'm not sure.  they just aren't very comfortable.

when your stint as a vegan is over ...

you go all out.  right?

i can't say it was planned.  i think i was in fact going to hold out for a blt with the bacon i just scored from cedarbrook farm  (h street farmers market, i love you).  but when i stopped by our most awesome corner food shop for a boule or baguette (either or as they are equally delicious) and happened upon this ham and cheese croissant i could not help myself.  i had just spent an hour or so in the sun, had a very light breakfast and had been walking to and fro imagining the meals i'd make with my veggies later on.  i was starving.  and it was absolutely worth it.

though so was the week of no animal products.  in fact, that week of no animal products was quite educational.

WHAT I LEARNED :

1.  being a vegan isn't *that* hard.

2.  being a vegan isn't that hard in a time where whole foods, a plethora of independent food shops, and the interwebs exist.

3.  i still love to eat pig and cow and sometimes other animals and i don't really want that to change.

4.  going vegan means i get to force mas to eat asian food.  don't get me wrong, the boy likes everything from thai to chinese to korean to sushi but we NEVER make it at home.  partly because it's been a miserable failure every time we've tried and partly because mas pretends to hate asian flavors when i suggest we make them.

5.  it would not be hard to be a fat/unhealthy vegan, which goes against everything i have ever believed.

6.  we can in fact use all of the produce in our green grocer box before it goes bad.

7.  almond milk makes everything better (though i kind of knew this already).

8. van's frozen waffles are the shit esp. with coconut oil and maple syrup.  we will always have these in the freezer from here on out.

9.  some people kind of judge you for being not really a vegan.  lame.
10.  i can go a week without bread and cheese.  this was really the main reason i went vegan and not vegetarian.  you see we go vegetarian all the time.  it's not a big deal.  and when we do that i mostly find myself snacking endlessly on variations of bread and cheese.  i will, actually, only eat bread and cheese for days straight at times.  but now, now i have veggies as a fall back.  i just didn't realize.
11.  the black pepper tofu from plenty is just as delicious as all of the other recipes in that book, and just as hard to source ingredients for.  i didn't have the three varieties of soy sauce that were called for and our dish kind of suffered.  next time i'll make the trip out to the eden center and buy them all.
12.  the thing i missed the most, hands down, was butter ... and the baked goods that result from butter. oreos are not as good as they used to be, or they are, but i just don't like them as much as i used to? we've been hard core on our version of milk bar cookies recently and i dare say they've spoiled us for anything of less quality (cornflake-chocolate-chip-marshmallow coming your way soon!).  this surprised me ...  i thought cheeseburgers or cheese would be the most missed.

adidas originals x opening ceremony.

i'm a sucker for collaborations.  and i really, really, really like this one.  adidas originals x opening ceremony will be available early july.  just in time for me to be tired of my current bathing suits.

eating habits.

my favorite food is the cheeseburger.  mas' is split between cheeseburgers and spaghetti.  there was a time in our lives, a good chunk of time even, when we were eating meat only once a week (mostly in cheeseburger form).  but something happened.  we moved, mas started travelling, we came across good meat available for purchase just down the street, we live in a city where the food is actually delicious and the variety great.  we started eating meat every other day.

and now we both kind of feel gross.  so we are taking a break.  we've gone vegan for the week.  we say we're going to do things like this all of the time.  so far it's never worked out.  but we're on day one point five and so far i haven't dipped into the challah we bought on friday and stupidly didn't finish over the weekend, i consider this a win.

tomorrow morning it's muesli and spiced strawberry syrup from my new roots.  tonight is't black pepper tofu from ottologheni's plenty.  two recipes i'm fairly certain i wouldn't have gotten around to making if we hadn't cut out butter and cheese and yogurt.


i know it's not a lot, but now it kinda seems like it, and maybe it'll change our piss poor eating habits ... at least for a while. 


{image of tomorrow's breakfast from my new roots}

no, your cilantro should not look like that.

the other day i tweeted this picture because i was so proud of our cilantro plant.  it was growing so big and strong, something i've had very little success with when it comes to herbs. normally they just die.  mostly because i forget about them.

but now we have a bunch of edibles in the front yard and for some reason (maybe the fear of the disappointment of our neighbors?) they are all thriving.  i weed and water and whisper sweet nothings to them.  so far it's working out.

or at least i thought.  why did no one tell me that the second cilantro starts blooming it begins to loose it's flavor?  why did no one tell me that i should be trimming my cilantro by at least 1/3 every single week?  i'm sitting here afraid to trim any of it because i don't want to disrupt the delicate cycle of life meanwhile i am actually KILLING it, well sort of, killing it's flavor and usefulness.  and now it looks like i might just have to start over, with a whole new plant.

i found this all out when i went and googled something like "how to trim a cilantro plant in the garden," yup that is my level of expertise here.   i guess i should also read up on basil and dill and lavender and rosemary and jalepeños and habeneros.  good thing i've grown tomatoes before.  i certainly would have hated to make six plants worth of inedible fruit.

it's a learning process this gardening thing, and so far it's taken me a bit longer than normal to catch on.

for fall.

loeffler randall, you continue to kill me with your shoes.

lily wedge booties in a 7.5 please.

managing expectations.

you know what i am shit at?  managing expectations.  wether they are super duper high, or stupid low, they are inevitably extreme.  it's just the way i am.  i cannot help it.  it gets me into trouble .... a lot.  i should know better.  i really should.

so two weeks ago when bandolero finally announced their opening i was through the roof excited.  isabella's graffiato is one of our go-to dinner spots.  it's close, it's tasty, THEY HAVE PROSECCO ON TAP (and pony beers).  it's decently priced, the food isn't fussy and as long as i remember to specify a table downstairs i dig the atmosphere.  then you add to that margaritas and tacos.  it might as well be my version of the best place on the planet.

so we went and it was so underwhelming it's ridiculous.  i hate to give a review two weeks in, because lets face it, a new place needs TIME.  it always boggles my mind when people split hairs because the service wasn't spot on in the first month. it just doesn't seem to be a fair burden to place on EVERY restaurant. but then you add on to this that bandolero is not the first venture for anyone involved (i assume our waitress had in fact been a waitress before, but i might be wrong) and then they do something so asinine that it is in fact cause for a least a question if not a complaint ... they offered a tasting menu.

you guys when someone tells me that isabella is in the kitchen making my favorite foods this weekend and he has come up with a tasting menu you better fucking believe we are ordering it.  mas and i are firm believers in trusting the people that make the food to tell us what to eat.   so we agreed and they dropped plate after plate after plate in such rapid succession we couldn't wrap our heads around what we were eating...

we liked the guacamole, and were ok with the margaritas.  there was a suckling pig taco that was pretty good and the pork rinds they threw down with the chips at the beginning of the meal were a welcome surprise (dc, i like this trend).  but the thing of it was, we received regular order sized portions of everything, nothing was off the menu or special, and when tallied up individually everything was in fact cheaper when ordered separately.

i can give them that the fried fish tacos came out a bit not warm, and that the margarita was a touch watered down and our waitress was beyond weird because not every day is going to be a good one, and to be fair, i had expectations through the roof.  but making a big deal out of a random assortment of menu items and then up-charging for the service of not telling you what you're eating is kind of lame.  and i expect more from any decent restaurant.  i think we'll go back once summer really strikes (the rain did not help the entire ordeal) and drink the fancier than just a margarita drinks and eat food that we pick.  i think then we will enjoy it.  but for now, if you go and you are offered a tasting menu, save yourself and don't do it.

images via bandolero